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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process ImprovementThu, Feb 01, 2018
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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CS Colloquium: Nanyun Peng (University of Southern California) – Jointly Learning Representations for Low Resource Information Extraction
Thu, Feb 01, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nanyun Peng , University of Southern California
Talk Title: Jointly Learning Representations for Low Resource Information Extraction
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: There is abundant knowledge out there carried in the form of natural language texts, such as social media posts, scientific research literature, medical records, etc., which grows at an astonishing rate. Yet this knowledge is mostly inaccessible to computers and overwhelming for human experts to absorb. Information extraction (IE) processes raw texts to produce machine understandable structured information, thus dramatically increasing the accessibility of knowledge through search engines, interactive AI agents, and medical research tools. However, traditional IE systems assume abundant human annotations for training high quality machine learning models, which is impractical when trying to deploy IE systems to a broad range of domains, settings and languages. In this talk, I will present how to leverage the distributional statistics of characters and words, the annotations for other tasks and other domains, and the linguistics and problem structures, to combat the problem of inadequate supervision, and conduct information extraction with scarce human annotations.
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: Nanyun Peng is a computer scientist at Information Science Institute. She got her Ph.D at Johns Hopkins University. She is broadly interested in Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Information Extraction. Her research focuses on low-resource information extraction, creative language generation, and phonology/morphology modeling. Nanyun is the recipient of the Johns Hopkins University 2016 Fred Jelinek Fellowship. She has a background in computational linguistics and economics and holds BAs in both from Peking University.
Host: David Traum
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Fri, Feb 02, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Maribel Vazquez, Sc.D., Associate Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering City College of New York, CUNY
Talk Title: Microfluidics-Enhanced Predictive Models for Retinal Cell Replacement
Abstract: Progressive and irreversible vision loss affects millions of Americans each year and is a profound health challenge worldwide. Current restorative treatments for retinal dysfunction have introduced stem-like cells (STLCs) as replacements for damaged photoreceptors in order to re-establish synaptic connectivity with secondary neurons. Numerous studies have reported modest synaptic integration despite meaningful advances in specialized replacement cells and cell-delivery biomaterials. This is largely attributed to unsuitable migration and positioning of transplanted cells, as the migratory processes of donor STLCs out of the sub-retinal space and into host retinal laminae are neither clinically- nor developmentally-defined. Our work develops an experimental model to predict synaptic integration of transplanted cells by using microfluidics and retinal explants to mimic degenerative microenvironments (Fig. 1). The model uses combinatory, chemical signals and electric fields to recapitulate the migratory responses and connectivity of STLCs during development and stimulate these desired behaviors in transplantation. Results illustrate that combinatory galvano-chemoattractive fields are able to stimulate three times the infiltration distance than either field, individually, as well as promote tunable, collective cell responses.
Biography: Maribel Vazquez is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at City College of New York, and is a co-founding member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the City College of New York (CCNY). Her appointment as Assistant Professor was dedicated toward establishing the first BME undergraduate curriculum and Master's program at a Minority Serving Institution. She later developed the first microfluidics and microfabrication laboratory at CCNY by leveraging my industry and research expertise in the design and manufacture of microsystems. She has been continuously awarded funding for independent research as well as for undergraduate educational initiatives from NIH (Physical Science-Oncology Center, Comprehensive Minority Institution/Cancer Center Partnership), NSF (Nanotechnology Education for Undergraduates, Emergent Behaviors of Intracellular Systems) and AFOSR (Microtechnology and Fabrication for Mechanical Engineers).
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: DRB 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 02, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Arjun Punshi, Hughes Network Systems
Talk Title: Satellite Terminals and Hughes Network System
Host: Dr. Prata & EHP
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Su Stevens
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Essentials of Composites Manufacturing
Sat, Feb 03, 2018
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: Essentials of Composites Manufacturing provides a high-level overview of manufacturing science and engineering for aerospace composite structures, focusing on prepreg and liquid molding processes, including hands-on laboratory demonstrations.
Course participants will complete a multiple-choice quiz as a knowledge assessment, available online at the end of the course. When the course and quiz have been successfully completed, participants will receive USC Continuing Education Units.
Host: Corporate & Professional Programs
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/chemical-engineering-materials-science/essentials-composites-manufacturing/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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Biomedical Engineering Seminars
Mon, Feb 05, 2018 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Fikret Kirkbir, Ph.D, Director for Intellectual and Patents, AMI
Talk Title: TBA
Host: Professor Qifa Zhou
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Mon, Feb 05, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ben Dongsong Huh, Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Talk Title: Investigating the spike-based computations of the brain
Abstract: Our brain uses temporal dynamics of neural activities to perform real-time computations: it processes time-varying streams of information and produces action sequences. How the brain coordinates the complex biophysical dynamics to form the basis for computation is a central problem in neuroscience. I apply optimal control theory to investigate how functionality of dynamical systems arises from first principles and, more specifically, to establish a unifying framework for understanding the dynamics and computations of the brain. The most prominent characteristics of biological neural networks is spikes: The brief impulse signals link individual neural dynamics and provide a unified currency for the asynchronous information processing in the brain. However, neuroscience lacks the theoretical framework for modeling how spikes represent information and perform computations in distributed network architectures. To solve this problem, I derived the first general learning algorithm for spiking neural networks from an optimal control principle, representing the first step in harnessing the computational potential of spikes. The spike-based computational principles can be extracted by analyzing how a trained network solves the computational tasks. More generally, this method allows combining the top-down deep learning approaches with the biophysical network properties to yield detailed models of neural systems that are both structurally and functionally accurate.
This research has a wide range of engineering applications, including spike-based deep learning for neuromorphic devices, and next generation Brain-Machine-Interface and neuro-prosthetics that directly use spike signals for fine control. Most importantly, I aim to promote close collaborations between neuroscience and artificial intelligence research by providing a common theoretical framework.
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Mon, Feb 05, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Douglas Smith, Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Talk Title: AFOSR -“ Unsteady Aerodynamics and Turbulent Flows: An Introduction
Abstract: This presentation will give a brief introduction to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Unsteady Aerodynamics and Turbulent Flows portfolio at AFOSR. The Unsteady Aerodynamics and Turbulent Flows portfolio is interested in basic research problems associated with the motion and control of laminar, transitional and turbulent flows, including the interactions of these flows with rigid and flexible surfaces. The portfolio seeks to advance fundamental understanding of complex, time-dependent flow interactions by integrating theoretical/analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches. The focus on the understanding of the fundamental flow physics is motivated by an interest in developing physically-based predictive models and innovative control concepts for these flows. Research in this portfolio is motivated by, but not limited to, applications including unique fluid-structure interactions, vortex and shear layer flows, and the enduring challenges of turbulence.
Biography: Dr. Douglas Smith is the Program Officer for the Unsteady Aerodynamics and Turbulent Flows portfolio at AFOSR. Dr. Smith received his ScB in Engineering from Brown University in 1987 and his MA and PhD from Princeton University in 1990 and 1993, respectively. After completing his doctorate, Dr. Smith spent two and a half years as a post-doctoral researcher in Europe, first at Institut de Mecanique Statistique de la Turbulence (IMST) in Marseille, France, and then at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. Following these two positions, Dr. Smith was a Georgia Tech post-doctoral fellow working on active flow control concepts with the Boeing Phantom Works group in St. Louis. Prior to his arrival at AFOSR, Dr. Smith was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wyoming.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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MASCLE Machine Learning Seminar: Dr. Harry Shum (Microsoft)
Mon, Feb 05, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Harry Shum, Microsoft
Talk Title: TBA
Series: MASCLE NVIDIA Distinguished Lecture Series
Abstract: TBA
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium. Please note, due to limited capacity in MCB 101, seats will be first come first serve.
Biography: Harry Shum is executive vice president of Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Research group. He is responsible for driving the company's overall AI strategy and forward-looking research and development efforts spanning infrastructure, services, apps and agents. He oversees AI-focused product
groups -” the Information Platform Group, Bing and Cortana product groups -” and the Ambient Computing and Robotics teams. He also leads Microsoft Research, one of the world's premier computer science research organizations, and its integration with the engineering teams across the company.
Previously, Dr. Shum served as the corporate vice president responsible for Bing search product development from 2007 to 2013. He received his Ph.D. in robotics from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering of the United States.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - Michelson Center 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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From Flocking Birds to Swarming Bacteria: A Study of the Dynamics of Active Fluids
Tue, Feb 06, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xiang Cheng, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota
Talk Title: From Flocking Birds to Swarming Bacteria: A Study of the Dynamics of Active Fluids
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Active fluids are a novel class of non-equilibrium complex fluids with examples across a wide range of biological and physical systems such as flocking animals, swarming microorganisms, vibrated granular rods, and suspensions of synthetic colloidal swimmers. Different from familiar non-equilibrium systems where free energy is injected from boundaries, an active fluid is a dispersion of large numbers of self-propelled units, which convert the ambient/internal free energy and maintain non-equilibrium steady states at microscopic scales. Due to this distinct feature, active fluids exhibit fascinating and unusual behaviors unseen in conventional complex fluids. Here, by combining high-speed confocal microscopy, holographic imaging, rheological measurements and biochemical engineering, we experimentally investigate the dynamics of active fluids. In particular, we use E. coli suspensions as our model system and illustrate three unique properties of active fluids, i.e., (i) abnormal rheology, (ii) enhanced diffusion of passive tracers and (iii) emergence of collective swarming. Based on theoretical tools of fluid mechanics and statistical mechanics, we develop a quantitative understanding of these interesting behaviors. Our study illustrates the general organizing principles of active fluids that can be exploited for designing "smart" fluids with controllable fluid properties. Our results also shed new light on fundamental transport processes in microbiological systems.
Biography: Xiang Cheng received his B.S. in physics from Peking University in China in 2002. He then moved to U.S. and obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 2009. He worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Physics at Cornell University from 2009 to 2013. He is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Cheng has received several academic awards, including NSF Career Award, Packard Fellowship, DARPA Young Faculty Award, 3M non-tenured faculty award and McKnight Land-Grant Professorship. His research group studies experimental soft materials physics, with a special focus on the emergent flow behaviors of soft materials and their associated mesoscopic structures and dynamics. Particularly, his research interests include the rheology of colloidal suspensions and granular flows, hydrodynamics of active fluids and dynamics of liquid-drop impact processes.
Host: Professor Paul Bogdan
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651
Tue, Feb 06, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Zelda B. Zabinsky, Professor, University of Washington
Talk Title: On Beyond LP: Optimization of Complex Systems
Host: Professor Julie Higle
More Information: February 6, 2018.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Systems Engineering Research Center Webinar
Wed, Feb 07, 2018 @ 08:00 AM - 09:00 PM
Systems Architecting and Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jan Bosch, Professor of Software Engineering, Software Center, Chalmers University of Technology
Talk Title: Speed, Data and Ecosystems: How to Excel in a Software-Driven World?
Series: SERC Talks
Abstract: We are living in the most exciting time in the history of mankind. The last century has seen unprecedented improvements in the quality of the human condition and technology is at the heart of this progress. Now we are experiencing an even bigger leap as we move towards a new level of digitalization and automation. Ranging from self driving cars to factories without workers to societal infrastructure, every sensor and actuator is becoming connected and new applications that enable new opportunities are appearing daily. The fuel of this emerging connected, software-driven reality is software and the key challenge is to continuously deliver value to customers. The future of software business in this context is centered around three main developments: Speed, Data and Ecosystems. The focus on speed is concerned with the constantly increasing rate of deploying new software in the field. This continuous integration and deployment is no longer only the purview of internet companies but is also increasingly deployed in embedded systems. Second, data is concerned with the vast amounts of information collected from systems deployed in the field and the behavior of the users of these systems. Software businesses need to significantly improve their ability to exploit the value present in that data. Finally, ecosystems are concerned with the transition in many companies from doing everything inhouse to strategic use of innovation partners and partners providing commodity functionality. The keynote addresses these three main developments, provides numerous examples from the Nordic and international industry and predicts the next steps that industry and academia need to engage in to remain competitive.
Biography: Jan Bosch is Professor of Software Engineering at Chalmers University Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is Director of the Software Center, a strategic partner funded collaboration between 11 large European companies (including Ericsson, Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks, Saab Defense, Jeppesen (Boeing), Siemens and Bosch) and five universities focused on software engineering excellence. Earlier, he worked as Vice President Engineering Process at Intuit Inc. where he also led Intuits Open Innovation efforts and headed the central mobile technologies team. Before Intuit, he was head of the Software and Application Technologies Laboratory at Nokia Research Center, Finland. Prior to joining Nokia, he headed the software engineering research group at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He received a MS degree from the University of Twente, The Netherlands, and a PhD degree from Lund University, Sweden. His research activities include evidence-based development, software architecture, innovation experiment systems, compositional software engineering, software ecosystems, software product families and software variability management. He is the author of several books including Design and Use of Software Architectures: Adopting and Evolving a Product Line Approach, published by Pearson Education (Addison-Wesley & ACM Press) and Speed, Data and Ecosystems: Excelling in a Software-Driven World, published by Taylor and Francis, editor of several books and volumes and author of a significant number of research articles. He is editor for Journal of Systems and Software as well as Science of Computer Programming, chaired several conferences as general and program chair, served on numerous program committees and organized countless workshops.
In the startup space, Jan is Chairman of the Board of Auqtus AB and, until recently, Fidesmo in Stockholm, Remente, in Gothenburg, Sweden. He serves on the advisory board of Assia Inc. in Redwood City, CA, Peltarion AB in Stockholm and Burt AB in Gothenburg, Sweden. Jan also runs a boutique consulting firm, Boschonian AB, that offers its clients support around the implications of digitalization including the management of R&D and innovation. For more information see his website: www.janbosch.com
Host: Prof. Barry Boehm for the Systems Engineering Research Center
More Info: http://www.sercuarc.org/serc-talks
Webcast: http://www.sercuarc.org/events/serc-talks-speed-data-and-ecosystems-how-to-excel-in-a-software-driven-world/Location: WebEx Event Password: SERC
WebCast Link: http://www.sercuarc.org/events/serc-talks-speed-data-and-ecosystems-how-to-excel-in-a-software-driven-world/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: James Moore II
Event Link: http://www.sercuarc.org/serc-talks
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Thu, Feb 08, 2018 @ 01:00 AM - 02:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jennifer Treweek, Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Biology and Bioengineering, Caltech
Talk Title: Functional and anatomical mapping of neuropeptide circuitry using modern neuroscience techniques
Abstract: Neuropeptide systems are notoriously difficult to study due to their biological complexity and the overall technical inadequacy of traditional pharmacological tools (e.g., synthetic design of receptor ligands, immunohistochemistry-based labeling). However, given the pathological relevance of neuropeptides, such as corticotropin releasing factor, to a variety of disease states, the functional and anatomical characterization of neuropeptide circuitry is crucial to our discovery of better disease therapies. The development and application of new technologies to enable such characterization is an important first step towards this goal.
In my talk, I will summarize recent improvements to in vivo modalities for recording and perturbing neuronal activity in behaving rodents, as well as ex vivo techniques for analyzing the functional connectivity of targeted cells at the single-molecule through systems-levels. In particular, our methods for the multiplexed labeling and imaging of mRNA and peptide epitopes at depth in cleared tissue offer scientists an opportunity to visualize transcriptional changes and structural plasticity in intact circuits during the progression of disease.
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Abbreviation Disambiguation and NLP tools for Danish
Thu, Feb 08, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Manuel Ciosici, Aarhus University, Denmark
Talk Title: NL Seminar-Abbreviation Disambiguation and NLP tools for Danish
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: This talk will cover two topics. The first part will be a brief overview of Manuel's recent project in abbreviation disambiguation. Following, Manuel will give a brief overview of how various NLP methods are used in an industrial setting in a danish company that provides text analytics services for publishers such as Springer-Nature.
Biography: Manuel is a 3rd year PhD student at Aarhus University in Denmark. His PhD is focused on applying Data Mining and Machine Learning on large collections of unstructured text documents with the goal of extracting and representing knowledge embedded in the documents.
Host: Nanyun Peng and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Floor Conf Rm-CR# 689
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 09, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Marina Agranov, Caltech Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
Talk Title: Negotiations and Group Decisions: Passing Bills With Backroom Deals
Host: Dr. Prata & EHP
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Su Stevens
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NL Seminar-Contextual Bandits in a Collaborative Environment
Fri, Feb 09, 2018 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hongning Wang , University of Virginia
Talk Title: Contextual Bandits in a Collaborative Environment
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Contextual bandit algorithms provide principled online learning solutions to find optimal trade offs between exploration and exploitation with companion side-information. They have been extensively used in various important practical scenarios, such as display advertising and content recommendation. A common practice estimates the unknown bandit parameters pertaining to each user independently. This unfortunately ignores dependency among users and thus leads to suboptimal solutions, especially for the applications that have strong social components.
In this talk, I will introduce our newly developed collaborative contextual bandit algorithm, in which the adjacency graph of users is leveraged to share context and payoffs among neighboring users during online updating. We rigorously prove an improved upper regret bound of the proposed collaborative bandit algorithm comparing to conventional independent bandit algorithms. More importantly, we also prove that user dependency relation is only needed to be time-invariant, such that a sublinear upper regret bound is still achievable in such an algorithm. This enables online user dependency estimation. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and three large scale real world datasets verified the improvement of our proposed algorithm against several state-of-the-art contextual bandit algorithms. In addition, I will also cover our recent progress in online matrix factorization, optimizing user long- term engagement, and bandit learning in a non-stationary environment.
Biography: Dr. Hongning Wang is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana in 2014. His research generally lies in the intersection among machine learning, data mining and information retrieval, with a special focus on computational user intent modeling. His work has generated over 40 research papers in top venues in data mining and information retrieval areas. He is a recipient of 2016 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and 2014 Yahoo Academic Career Enhancement Award.
Host: Nanyun Peng and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Astani CEE Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, Feb 09, 2018 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ruda Zhang, Civil Engineering PhD. Student
Talk Title: An Engineering-Economics-Law Framework of Transportation
Abstract:
Analyzing social systems such as cities requires a different set of formal methods than those used for physical systems. With a personal goal to eliminate traffic congestion, I propose an analytical framework that integrates engineering, economics, and law. The framework traces up to the root cause of congestion inefficient transportation institutions and seeks a solution that endures under behavior changes of the society.
To demonstrate this framework, my PhD research studied taxi transportation. I obtained all the 868 million trip records of New York City taxis between 2009 and 2013 generated by in vehicle TPEP systems, which integrate GPS receiver, cellular modem, and smart card reader with the taximeter. With these records, I built models of taxi operations to estimate taxi supply and demand the outcome of traffic equilibrium proved and validated driver supply decisions the equilibrium strategy, and studied the effect of property rights regulation on taxi operation the efficiency of current institutions.
Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Mon, Feb 12, 2018 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: Week 1: February 12-15, 2018
Week 2: March 12-16, 2018
Week 3: April 9-13, 2018
9am - 5pm
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 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 provide a windows based computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.
Host: USC Viterbi Executive Education
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Mon, Feb 12, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Richard Murray, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Safety-Critical Autonomous Systems: What is Possible? What is Required?
Abstract: The last 20 years have seen enormous progress in autonomous vehicles, from planetary rovers, to unmanned aerial vehicles, to the self-driving cars that we are starting to see on the roads around us. An open question is whether we can we make self-driving cars that are safer than human-driven cars, how much safer they need to be, and what advances will be required to bring them to fruition. In this talk, I will discuss some of the approaches used in the aerospace industry, where flight critical subsystems must achieve probability of failure rates of less than 1 failure in 10^9 flight hours (i.e. less than 1 failure per 100,000 years of operation). Systems that achieve this level of reliability are hard to design, hard to verify, and hard to validate, especially if software is involved. I will describe some of the challenges that the aerospace community faces in designing systems with this level of reliability, how they are designed and implemented done today, and what is being done for the next generation of (much more complex, software-driven) aerospace systems. I will also speculate about whether similar approaches are needed in self-driving cars, and whether these levels of safety are achievable.
Biography: Richard M. Murray received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1985 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He is currently the Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at Caltech. Murray's research is in the application of feedback and control to networked systems, with applications in biology and autonomy. Current projects include specification, design and synthesis of control protocols for networked control systems and analysis and design of biomolecular feedback systems for synthetic biology.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Biomedical Engineering Seminars
Mon, Feb 12, 2018 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: TBA
Host: Professor Qifa Zhou
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Mon, Feb 12, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Samantha Santacruz,
Talk Title: Pathological Neural Mechanisms and Systems-based Neurotherapies
Abstract: The brain is a complex system comprised of billions of neurons that work coherently together to control our behavior and general function. The advent of techniques such as multi-electrode recordings, microstimulation and neural imaging has provided powerful tools for modern systems neuroscience to study learning and neural adaptation, and importantly how neural function is compromised in the diseased state. In this talk, I will focus on electrical microstimulation, and how it can be used both as a tool to study brain states and a therapeutic mechanism to treat circuit-wide disorders. The first part of the talk will focus on applications of microstimulation in animal models. In this half, I will demonstrate through modulation of neural signals encoding value using microstimulation in the dorsomedial striatum that I can differentially modulate decision-making processes, which are often compromised in the disease state. I will also present results showing that closed-loop microstimulation of prefrontal areas has anxiolytic effects and modulates autonomic state. In the second part of the talk, I will focus on materials and devices for neurotherapies. When microstimulation is applied, it is advantageous to be able to probe the system and record neural activity simultaneously during stimulation. I will present work on carbon nanotube fiber microelectrodes and discuss how this novel material provides an excellent bidirectional interface with neural tissue. This will be followed with a discussion of a new device for wireless neuromodulation and recording, which utilizes a state-of-the-art ASIC for fast charge-clearing and near-perfect stimulation artifact removal. I will conclude this talk with my future directions in the development of neuroprosthetic devices and new modalities beyond microstimulation.
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Non traditional resources and improved tools for low resource machine translation
Mon, Feb 12, 2018 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nima Pourdamghani, USC/ ISI
Talk Title: NL Seminar-Non-traditional resources and improved tools for low resource machine translation
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Thanks to massive training data, and powerful machine translation techniques, machine translation quality has reached acceptable levels for a handful of languages. However, for hundreds of other languages, translation quality decreases quickly as the size of the available training data becomes smaller. For languages with a few millions or less tokens of translation data called low resource languages in this dissertation traditional machine translation technologies fail to produce understandable translations into English. In this work, I explore various non-traditional sources for improving low-resource machine translation.
Biography: Nima Pourdamghani is a phd student at USC ISI working with professor Kevin Knight. Nima's interests are natural language processing, and applications of machine learning in general. His phd thesis is on building tools to improve machine translation for hundreds of low-resource languages.
Host: Nanyun Peng and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Tue, Feb 13, 2018 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: Week 1: February 12-15, 2018
Week 2: March 12-16, 2018
Week 3: April 9-13, 2018
9am - 5pm
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 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 provide a windows based computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.
Host: USC Viterbi Executive Education
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
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Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651
Tue, Feb 13, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Zhaosong Lu, Professor, Simon Fraser University
Talk Title: Algorithmic Development for Computing B-Stationary Points of a Class of Nonsmooth DC Programs
Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang
More Information: February 13, 2018.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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INCOSE-LA Speaker Meeting
Tue, Feb 13, 2018 @ 05:15 PM - 07:30 PM
Systems Architecting and Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shaun Westbrook, Principal HMI Lead and Futurist, Honda R and D Americas
Talk Title: Vehicle Human Interaction and IoT
Series: INCOSE-LA Speaker Series
Abstract: As we approach the age of autonomy, when connected robotics and autonomous vehicles become widespread, there also comes a need to build human confidence in those AI systems. The Honda HMI concept and Acura Precision Cockpit were new human machine interface electric vehicle interior demonstrators that unlocked the benefits of connectivity and autonomous technology while offering an enhanced driving experience. When designing for autonomous UX systems, however, giving over confidence in the AI safety elements can also be a problem. To tackle this, successfully connecting the dots between different industries as we approach the 4th industrial revolution becomes necessary. This talk will cover the role of the futurist in the R and D environment and the evolving role of the interface for machine vision systems.
DIRECTIONS TO THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION
Location: between Imperial and El Segundo Blvd (north to south), between the 405 Freeway and Sepulveda (east to west).
From the 105 Freeway traveling WEST:
1. Take the exit towards 405 South
2. Before getting onto the 405 Freeway, take the El Segundo Blvd exit
3. At the bottom of the ramp, turn left (west)
4. Turn right on Aviation Blvd.
5. Bldg. D8 will be on the third building on the Right, just past the discount bakery.
The facility is the third building from the corner of Aviation and El Segundo, just north of the discount bakery outlet. The facility has 4 gates, but only the southern-most gate is open. Identify yourself to the security guard as attending the INCOSE meeting. You can park where Security directs and enter through the lobby at the center of the building where the flag poles are. Knock on the first of the double doors, and someone will open the door for you. The handicap ramp is on the north side and can be reached by driving all the way around the back of the building. Inform the security guard if you plan to use that ramp.
Schedule:
5:15-5:30 Sign-in and Registration
5:30-6:00 Networking and Refreshments
6:10-6:20 Introduction
6:20-6:30 WG Presentation (TBD)
6:30-7:30 Guest Speaker Presentation
Please RSVP by noon February 6, 2018 to facilitate event registration and planning, foreign nationals by Feb 1, 2018.
The RSVP Link is below
Biography: Shaun Westbrook is a Principal HMI Lead and Futurist at Honda R&D Americas, pioneering advances in human machine interfaces. He holds inventor patents in interface technologies and has presented his work at CES, CES Asia, LA Automobility, and NAIAS; covering areas in human mobility, consumer electronics, and AI. His HMI work aims to increase human confidence in future autonomous vehicles and decrease driver distraction for production systems.
Host: The Aerospace Corporation (Venue); INCOSE-Los Angeles (Event)
More Info: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=l4ihvgeab&oeidk=a07eesxzzfn485e4491
Location: The Aerospace Corporation, Building D8-1010, 200 N. Aviation, El Segundo, CA
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: James Moore II
Event Link: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=l4ihvgeab&oeidk=a07eesxzzfn485e4491
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Wed, Feb 14, 2018 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: Week 1: February 12-15, 2018
Week 2: March 12-16, 2018
Week 3: April 9-13, 2018
9am - 5pm
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 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 provide a windows based computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.
Host: USC Viterbi Executive Education
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
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Dynamical Systems on Weighted Lattices: Nonlinear Processing and Optimization
Wed, Feb 14, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Petros Maragos, School of E.C.E., National Technical University of Athens
Talk Title: Dynamical Systems on Weighted Lattices: Nonlinear Processing and Optimization
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: In this talk we will present a unifying theoretical framework of nonlinear processing operators and dynamical systems that obey a superposition of a weighted max-* or min-* type and evolve on nonlinear spaces which we call complete weighted lattices. Their algebraic structure has a polygonal geometry. Some of the special cases unified include max-plus, max-product, and probabilistic dynamical systems. Such systems have found applications in diverse fields including nonlinear image analysis and vision scale-spaces, control of discrete-event dynamical systems, dynamic programming (e.g. shortest paths, Viterbi algorithm), inference on graphical models, tracking salient events in multimodal information streams using generalized Markov chains, and sparse modeling. Our theoretical approach establishes their representation in state and input-output spaces using monotone lattice operators, finds analytically their state and output responses using nonlinear convolutions of a weighted max-min type, studies their stability and reachability, and provides optimal solutions to solving max-* matrix equations. The talk will summarize the main concepts and our theoretical results in this broad field using weighted lattice algebra and will sample some application areas.
Biography: Petros Maragos received the Diploma in E.E. from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1980 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Georgia Tech, Atlanta, in 1982 and 1985. In 1985, he joined the faculty of the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he worked for eight years as professor of electrical engineering affiliated with the Harvard Robotics Lab. In 1993, he joined the faculty of the School of ECE at Georgia Tech, affiliated with its Center for Signal and Image Processing. During periods of 1996-98 he had a joint appointment as director of research at the Institute of Language and Speech Processing in Athens. Since 1999, he has been working as professor at the NTUA School of ECE, where he is currently the director of the Intelligent Robotics and Automation Lab. He is also the coordinator of a robotics perception & interaction research unit at the Athena Research and Innovation Center. He has held visiting positions at MIT in 2012 and at UPenn in 2016. His research and teaching interests include signal processing, systems theory, machine learning, image processing and computer vision, audio-speech & language processing, and robotics. He has served as: member of IEEE SPS technical committees; associate editor for the IEEE Trans. on ASSP and IEEE Trans. on PAMI, editorial board member and guest editor for several journals on signal processing, image analysis and vision; co-organizer of several conferences and workshops on image processing, computer vision, multimedia and robotics (including recently EUSIPCO 2017 as general chair).He has also served on the Greek National Council for Research and Technology. His is the recipient or co-recipient of several awards for his academic work, including a 1987-1992 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, a 1988 IEEE SPS Young Author Best Paper Award, a 1994 IEEE SPS Senior Best Paper Award, the 1995 IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize Award for the most outstanding original paper, the 1996 Pattern Recognition Society's Honorable Mention Award, the EURASIP 2007 Technical Achievement Award for contributions to nonlinear signal, image and speech processing, and the Best Paper Award of the IEEE CVPR-2011 Gesture Recognition Workshop. He was elected a Fellow of IEEE in 1995 and a Fellow of EURASIP in 2010 for his research contributions. He has been elected IEEE SPS Distinguished Lecturer for 2017-2018.
Host: Professor Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Thu, Feb 15, 2018 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt
Abstract: Week 1: February 12-15, 2018
Week 2: March 12-16, 2018
Week 3: April 9-13, 2018
9am - 5pm
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 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 provide a windows based computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.
Host: USC Viterbi Executive Education
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-black-belt/
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Thu, Feb 15, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Carlos Pantano, Professor/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: Flame Hole Dynamics Applied to the Modeling of Turbulent Nonpremixed Combustion
Abstract: Turbulent diffusion flames can be quenched in regions of high strain owing to increased heat loss away from the reaction zone. These chemically inert regions are sometimes called flame holes (Dold et al. 1991). Turbulent flames with extinction are relevant in modern combustors where the flame temperature is kept low to reduce pollutant formation or in lifted jet flames used for thermal protection of the burner liner. Modeling the dynamical behavior of flame holes, without incorporating a detailed chemical-transport description, requires new numerical methods that describe the evolution in time of the flame boundary (or rim) on the moving stoichiometric surface. The kinematics of the flame rim is normally approximated as that of a two-dimensional edge flame whose speed of propagation is controlled by the local strain conditions. The computational challenge is the efficient numerical evolution of the flame rim using a state field defined on a two-manifold (of varying shape, and possibly multiply connected). In this talk, I will describe recent progress on the numerical and physical modeling of flame holes as it applies to turbulent nonpremixed flames with extinction. Special emphasis is made to achieve high-order of accuracy, flexibility, and robustness, while maintaining relatively low computational cost.
Biography: Carlos Pantano received his Bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering with specialization in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sevilla in Spain. He received a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Ecole Centrale Paris in France, and a Masters and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California San Diego. He held a Senior Postdoctoral position in Engineering from 2000 to 2001 at the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales in France and then moved to the California Institute of Technology as a senior post-doctoral associate and later as a senior research scientist until 2006. Currently, he holds the rank of Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Illinois. Professor Pantano received the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineering (PECASE) in 2006. He is currently an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and member of American Physical Society (APS), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the Combustion Institute.
Host: Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ashleen Knutsen
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Thu, Feb 15, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Adam Rouse, MD, PhD, Research Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Schieber Finger Movement Laboratory, University of Rochester
Talk Title: Brain-computer interfaces for the hand: Moving beyond linear models
Abstract: The field of motor brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has advanced dramatically. Our ability to accurately decode neural activity to directly control a cursor, robotic arm, or the patient's own muscles continues to improve. However, this control remains robotic and limited compared with natural human performance. Most BCI decoding relies on each neuron having a fixed and linear relationship to a given set of degrees of freedom. In experimental results from a reach-to-grasp task, Dr. Rouse will describe the sequential phases of movement observed with EMG, kinematic, and single-unit neurophysiologic recordings. He also will show the broad tuning throughout the entire upper forelimb region of primary motor cortex to both reach location and grasp object type and how it transitions between phases of the movement. Dr. Rouse will demonstrate why this sequential, selective tuning can serve as an important principle for BCI design. By using active dimension selection and four ethologically relevant dimensions of control, he will show how a simple 16 single unit BCI can efficiently control a virtual hand to achieve eight different postures with 93 percent accuracy, with average movement times of ~1 second. By analyzing large-dimensional datasets of joint kinematics, EMG, and neural activity, he focuses on understanding how neural populations can generate motor output across a broad dynamic range with speed and precision.
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 16, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Mike Habib, USC Keck School of Medicine and Los Angeles Natural History Museum
Talk Title: Weirdest Wonders on Wings
Host: Dr. Prata & EHP
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Su Stevens
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Manuel Monge, Neuralink Corp. - Friday, February 16 at 2:00pm in EEB 132
Fri, Feb 16, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Manuel Monge, Neuralink Corp.
Talk Title: High-Precision Electronic Medicine: Localization, Stimulation, and Beyond
Abstract: Over the past decades, remarkable advances toward miniaturized biomedical devices have been made and have enabled the development of new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. For instance, smart pills are being used to image the gastrointestinal tract, distributed sensors are being developed to map the function of the brain, and neural prostheses are being designed to help the visual, hearing, and motor impaired. However, most of today's implantable devices present critical limitations regarding size, power consumption, and functionality. Furthermore, several medical conditions could be dramatically improved if even smaller bioelectronic devices were to exist.
In this talk, I will provide an overview of implantable medical devices and present our efforts for engineering microscale devices to enable high-precision electronic medicine. In the first part of the talk, I will describe a novel approach for locating microscale devices inside the body using concepts from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We have demonstrated a new microchip that mimics the behavior of nuclear spins and can be located in space by the application of magnetic field gradients. Using this technique, we can locate a device smaller than 1 mm3 with sub-millimeter resolution in vivo. Such miniature devices could reach currently inaccessible locations inside the body with high precision to perform diagnosis and treatment of localized disease. In the second part, I will focus on neural stimulation techniques for retinal prostheses, which are devices aiming to restore vision in patients suffering from advanced stages of retinal degeneration (e.g., retinitis pigmentosa). I will present a fully intraocular epiretinal implant that reduces area and power consumption, and increases the functionality and resolution of traditional implementations. Finally, I will discuss some exciting research directions and potential applications of the developed techniques.
Biography: Manuel Monge received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in 2008 with honors, and the MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2010 and 2017, respectively. His research interests focus on the miniaturization of medical electronics by combining and integrating physical and biological principles into the design of microscale integrated circuits. He is currently working at Neuralink Corp., developing ultra-high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces.
He is the recipient of the 2017 Charles Wilts Prize from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Caltech for outstanding independent research in electrical engineering leading to a PhD, and the 2017 Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prize in Biotechnology from the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech for the best thesis in the field of biotechnology. He was also the co-recipient of the 2015 IEEE CICC Best Student Paper Award, 2nd Place, and the recipient of the Caltech Rosen Scholarship in 2014.
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 Seminar
Fri, Feb 16, 2018 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Megan Plumlee, Director of Research and Development, Orange Country Water District
Talk Title: Applied Research at Orange County Water District on Potable Reuse
Abstract: See attached Abstract.
More Information: Plumlee_Announcement.pdf
Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Biomedical Engineering Seminars
Mon, Feb 19, 2018 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA,
Host: Professor Qifa Zhou
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Tue, Feb 20, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kevin Chen, Center for Communications Research
Talk Title: Tutorial on Machine Learning and Neural Networks, Part I
Host: Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - 208
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ashleen Knutsen
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Modeling, Analysis and Design of Resilient Cyber-Physical Systems
Tue, Feb 20, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bruno Sinopoli , Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Title: Modeling, Analysis and Design of Resilient Cyber-Physical Systems
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Recent advances in sensing, communication and computing allow cost effective deployment in the physical world of large-scale networks of sensors and actuators, e.g. Internet of Things, enabling fine grain monitoring and control of a multitude of physical systems and infrastructures. Such systems, called cyber-physical, lie at the intersection of sensing, communication, computing and control. The close interplay among these fields and the resulting complexity render independent design of subsystems a risky approach, as separation of concerns does not constitute a realistic assumption in real world scenarios. It is therefore imperative to derive new models and methodologies to allow analysis and design of robust and secure cyber-physical systems (CPS). In this talk I will present an overview of recent research on the topic and discuss future directions.
Biography: Bruno Sinopoli received the Dr. Eng. degree from the University of Padova in 1998 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, in 2003 and 2005 respectively. After a postdoctoral position at Stanford University, Dr. Sinopoli joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University where he is full professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy appointments in Mechanical Engineering and in the Robotics Institute and co-director of the Smart Infrastructure Institute, a research center aimed at advancing innovation in the modeling analysis and design of smart infrastructure. Dr. Sinopoli was awarded the 2006 Eli Jury Award for outstanding research achievement in the areas of systems, communications, control and signal processing at U.C. Berkeley, the 2010 George Tallman Ladd Research Award from Carnegie Mellon University and the NSF Career award in 2010. His research interests include the modeling, analysis and design of Secure by Design Cyber-Physical Systems with applications to Energy Systems, Interdependent Infrastructures and Internet of Things.
Host: Professor Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651
Tue, Feb 20, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Yao Morin , Data Science Leader for Intuit Consumer Group
Talk Title: Leveraging AI in the Financial Technology Industry
Host: Dr. Meisam Razaviyayn
More Information: February 20, 2018.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - GER 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Wed, Feb 21, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sean Meyn, University of Florida
Talk Title: Reinforcement Learning: Hidden Theory, and New Super-Fast Algorithms
Abstract: Stochastic Approximation algorithms are used to approximate solutions to fixed point equations that involve expectations of functions with respect to possibly unknown distributions. The most famous examples today are TD- and Q-learning algorithms. The first half of this lecture will provide an overview of stochastic approximation, with a focus on optimizing the rate of convergence. A new approach to optimize the rate of convergence leads to the new Zap Q-learning algorithm. Analysis suggests that its transient behavior is a close match to a deterministic Newton-Raphson implementation, and numerical experiments confirm super fast convergence.
Biography: Sean Meyn received the BA degree in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1982 and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from McGill University, Canada, in 1987 (with Prof. P. Caines). He is now Professor and Robert C. Pittman Eminent Scholar Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, the director of the Laboratory for Cognition and Control, and director of the Florida Institute for Sustainable Energy. His academic research interests include theory and applications of decision and control, stochastic processes, and optimization. He has received many awards for his research on these topics, and is a fellow of the IEEE. He has held visiting positions at universities all over the world, including the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore during 1997-1998 where he was a Fulbright Research Scholar. During his latest sabbatical during the 2006-2007 academic year he was a visiting professor at MIT and United Technologies Research Center (UTRC). His award-winning 1993 monograph with Richard Tweedie, Markov Chains and Stochastic Stability, has been cited thousands of times in journals from a range of fields. The latest version is published in the Cambridge Mathematical Library. For the past ten years his applied research has focused on engineering, markets, and policy in energy systems. He regularly engages in industry, government, and academic panels on these topics, and hosts an annual workshop at the University of Florida.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu
More Information: meyn.png (PNG Image, 134 × 168 pixels).pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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CAIS Seminar: Dr. Robin Stevens (University of Pennsylvania) - Hashtag HIV?: Using Digital Epidemiology to advance HIV prevention among youth
Wed, Feb 21, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Robin Stevens, University of Pennsylvania
Talk Title: Hashtag HIV?: Using Digital Epidemiology to advance HIV prevention among youth
Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: Racial and ethnic disparities in HIV remain a public health priority in the U.S. In this talk, Dr. Stevens will discuss her research investigating associations between offline and online sexual risk behavior among African American and Latino youth. She will also discuss her ongoing Virus to Viral study, that seeks to provide a characterization of HIV risk and prevention behaviors on Twitter, with the goal of offering insights on effective messaging strategies that leverage social media. She will also discuss her approach to conducting community-engaged, theory driven digital epidemiology.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Dr. Robin Stevens is a health communication scholar focused on achieving health equity in African American and Latino communities. Her research integrates public health and communication science to influence the individual, social and structural determinants that drive health inequity. Her area of expertise is in examining the relationship between new and traditional media and youth risk behavior. Dr. Stevens is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the Director of the Health Equity & Media Lab.
Host: Milind Tambe
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Thu, Feb 22, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dong Song, USC, Research Associate Professor, Center for Neural Engineering
Talk Title: Towards a Clinical Hippocampal Memory Prosthesis
Abstract: Hippocampal memory prosthesis is a closed-loop system developed to bypass damaged hippocampal regions to restore or enhance memory functions. Different from deep brain stimulation, which delivers stereotypical stimulation patterns to target regions to modulate neural activities, hippocampal memory prostheses utilize biomimetic models and neural code-based stimulation patterns to reinstate neural signal transmission / processing and thus mimic brain functions. In this talk, I will first describe the multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear dynamical model being used as the computational basis of hippocampal memory prostheses and the proof-of-principle studies in animal models. Furthermore, I will talk about my more recent results in (1) enhancing memory functions in epilepsy patients with a hippocampal memory prosthesis, (2) developing next-generation computational models and neural interface technologies to fill the gap between the proof-of-principle and clinical hippocampal memory prostheses.
Host: Francisco Valero-Cuevas, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloquium: Pratik Chaudhari (UCLA) – A Picture of the Energy Landscape of Deep Neural Networks
Thu, Feb 22, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pratik Chaudhari, UCLA
Talk Title: A Picture of the Energy Landscape of Deep Neural Networks
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Deep networks are mysterious. These over-parametrized machine learning models, trained with rudimentary optimization algorithms on non-convex landscapes in millions of dimensions, have defied attempts to put a sound theoretical footing beneath their impressive performance.
This talk will shed light upon some of these mysteries. I will employ diverse ideas ---from thermodynamics and optimal transportation to partial differential equations, control theory and Bayesian inference--- and paint a picture of the training process of deep networks. Along the way, I will develop state-of-the-art algorithms for non-convex optimization.
The goal of machine perception is not just to classify objects in images but instead, enable intelligent agents that can seamlessly interact with our physical world. I will conclude with a vision of how advances in machine learning and robotics may come together to help build such an Embodied Intelligence.
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: Pratik Chaudhari is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at UCLA where he works with Stefano Soatto. His research interests include deep learning, robotics and computer vision. He has worked on perception and control algorithms for safe autonomous urban navigation as a part of nuTonomy Inc. Pratik holds Master's and Engineer's degrees from MIT and a Bachelor's degree from IIT Bombay in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Website: pratikac.info
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Thu, Feb 22, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kevin Chen, Center for Communications Research
Talk Title: Tutorial on Machine Learning and Neural Networks, Part II
Host: Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - 208
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ashleen Knutsen
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 23, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shivaji Deshmukh, Assistant General Manager, West Basin Municipal Water District
Talk Title: Local Water Resources Development in Coastal Los Angeles County
Host: Dr. Prata & EHP
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Su Stevens
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Dr. Julia Greer - Munushian Seminar Speaker, Friday, February 23rd at 2:00pm in EEB 132
Fri, Feb 23, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Julia Greer, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Materials by Design: 3-Dimensional Nano-Architected Meta-Materials
Abstract: Creation of extremely strong and simultaneously ultra lightweight materials can be
achieved by incorporating architecture into material design. We fabricate threedimensional
(3D) nano-architectures, i.e. nanolattices, whose constituents vary in size
from several nanometers to tens of microns to centimeters. These nanolattices can
exhibit superior thermal, photonic, electrochemical, and mechanical properties at extremely
low mass densities (lighter than aerogels), which renders them ideal for many
scientific pursuits and technological applications. The dominant properties of such
meta-materials, where individual constituent size at each relevant scale (atoms to
nanometers to microns) is comparable to the characteristic microstructural length
scale of the constituent solid, are largely unknown because of their multi-scale nature.
To harness the beneficial properties of 3D nano-architected meta-materials, it is
critical to assess properties at each relevant scale while capturing the overall structural
complexity.
We describe the deformation, as well as the mechanical, biochemical,
electrochemical, thermal, and photonic properties of nanolattices made of different
materials with varying microstructural detail. Attention is focused on uncovering the
synergy between the internal atomic-level microstructure and the nano-sized external
dimensionality, where competing material- and structure-induced size effects drive
overall response and govern these properties. Specific discussion topics include the
nanofabrication and characterization of (often hierarchical) three-dimensional nanoarchitected
meta-materials and their applications in chemical and biological devices,
ultra lightweight energy storage systems, damage-tolerant fabrics, and photonic
crystals.
Biography: Greer's research focuses on creating and characterizing classes of materials with multiscale
microstructural hierarchy, that utilize the combination of three-dimensional (3D)
architectures with nanoscale-induced material properties. These include nature-made
materials, i.e. bone and hard biological systems, as well as synthetic ones that can be
comprised of a broad range of materials: from ceramics and metals to glasses, polymers,
organics, organic/inorganic hybrids, and multi-functional smart materials. These nanoarchitected
meta-materials not only provide a rich "playground" for fundamental
science but also have the potential to enable new technological advances in biomedical
devices, battery electrodes, lightweight structural materials, and
Greer obtained her S.B. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Advanced Music
Performance from MIT in 1997 and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Stanford, worked
at Intel (2000-03) and was a post-doc at PARC (2005-07). Julia joined Caltech in 2007
and currently is a full professor with appointments in Materials Science, Mechanical
Engineering, and Medical Engineering.
Greer has more than 130 publications and has delivered over 100 invited lectures, which
include 2 TEDx talks, multiple named seminars at universities, the Watson lecture at
Caltech, the Gilbreth Lecture at the National Academy of Engineering, the Midwest
Mechanics Lecture series, and a "IdeasLab" at the World Economic Forum. She was
named a Vannevar-Bush Faculty Fellow by the US Department of Defence (2016) and
CNN's 20/20 Visionary (2016). Her work was recognized among Top-10 Breakthrough
Technologies by MIT's Technology Review (2015). Greer was named as one of "100
Most Creative People" by Fast Company and a Young Global Leader by World
Economic Forum (2014) and received multiple career awards: Kavli (2014), Nano
Letters, SES, and TMS (2013); NASA, ASME (2012), Popular Mechanics
Breakthrough Award (2012), DOE (2011), DARPA (2009), and Technology Review's
TR-35, (2008).
Greer serves as an Associated Editor for Nano Letters and Extreme Mechanics Letters.
She is also a concert pianist, with recent performances of "nanomechanics rap" with
MUSE/IQUE, solo piano recitals and chamber concerts (2007-present), and as a soloist
of Brahms Concerto No. 2 with Redwood Symphony (2006).
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian
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NL Seminar Digital Humanities Lots of Text Based Corpora Lots of Questions
Fri, Feb 23, 2018 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Miriam Posner Dave Shepard and Andrew Wallace , UCLA
Talk Title: Digital Humanities Lots of Text Based Corpora Lots of Questions
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Digital humanities is a field that uses digital tools to explore humanities questions. That work can take many different forms, from maps to data visualization to video based projects. In this talk, we will discuss humanities approaches to large scale text analysis, with a focus on corpora that may be of interest to computer scientists. We will also talk about the distinctive ways that humanists approach text analysis, and some of the live questions in the field that might interest NLP researchers.
Biography: Bio: Miriam Posner is an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Information. She is also a digital humanist with interests in labor, race, feminism, and the history and philosophy of data. As a digital humanist, she is particularly interested in the visualization of large bodies of data from cultural heritage institutions, and the application of digital methods to the analysis of images and video. She is at work on two projects the first on what data might mean for humanistic research and the second on how multinational corporations are making use of data in their supply chains.
Bio: David Shepard UCLA is Lead Academic Developer at UCLAs Center for Digital Humanities. After receiving his PhD in English from UCLA in 2012, he coauthored the book HyperCities Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities and has worked on social media and text mining. His work focuses on large scale analysis of social media in disasters.
Bio: Andrew Wallace is a software developer in the UCLA digital library. He received his PhD in Cognitive Science from Brown University in 2011.
Host: Nanyun Peng
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm 1135 Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Chia Wei Hsu, Monday, February 26th at 12:00pm noon in EEB 132
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chia Wei Hsu, Department of Applied Physics, Yal University
Talk Title: New Frontiers of Electromagnetic Phenomena at the Nanoscale
Abstract: Optics and photonics today enjoy unprecedented freedom. The ability to synthesize arbitrary light fields (through wavefront shaping) and the ability to design structures at the subwavelength scale (through nanofabrication) enable us to realize exciting new phenomena that were not accessible in the past. In this talk, I will present several such experiments and related theory.
It is commonly thought that waves cannot be perfectly confined within the continuum spectrum of an open system. I will describe the first realization of "bound states in the continuum" that defy such conventional textbook wisdom [1] as well as their underlying topological nature [2]. This new way to confine light enables novel lasers, filters, and sensors [3].
I will show that by tailoring the radiation of optical modes, we can realize non-Hermitian photonic band structures with no counterpart in closed Hermitian systems, such as rings of exceptional points [4] and pairs of exceptional points connected by bulk Fermi arcs [5].
By designing light fields, we can control wave transport even through unknown disordered structures. I will show that the multiple scattering of light leads to correlations between far-away photons [6] and that using such correlations, we can simultaneously control orders of magnitudes more degrees of freedom than what was previously thought to be possible [7].
I will conclude with my visions for new opportunities enabled by designed light fields and optical structures, including new paradigms for imaging and optical computing that have the potential to go beyond the current state of the art by orders of magnitude.
[1] C. W. Hsu*, B. Zhen* et al., Nature 499, 188 (2013).
[2] B. Zhen*, C. W. Hsu* et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 257401 (2014).
[3] C. W. Hsu*, B. Zhen* et al., Nature Reviews Materials 1, 16048 (2016).
[4] B. Zhen*, C. W. Hsu* et al., Nature 525, 354 (2015).
[5] H. Zhou et al., Science, eaap9859 (2018).
[6] C. W. Hsu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 223901 (2015).
[7] C. W. Hsu et al., Nature Physics 13, 497 (2017).
Biography: Wade is a postdoc at Yale applied physics. He received his PhD in physics from Harvard in 2015 and BS in physics with high honors from Wesleyan in 2010. His research centers around controlling light in nanoscale structures and complex systems, through a combination of experiment and theory. He is the co-author of 32 peer-reviewed journal articles and the co-inventor of 3 patents, and has delivered over a dozen invited talks internationally. He won the LeRoy Apker Award given by the American Physical Society and was a finalist for the Blavatnik Regional Award for Young Scientists.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Biomedical Engineering Seminars
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Donald Schwartz, MD, President
Talk Title: TBA
Host: Professor Qifa Zhou
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Biomedical Engineering Department Guest Speaker
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lyle Muller, Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Talk Title: Traveling waves in cortex: spatiotemporal dynamics shape perceptual and cognitive processes
Abstract: With new multichannel recording technologies, neuroscientists can now record from cortex with high spatial and temporal resolution. Early recordings during anesthesia revealed spontaneous and stimulus-evoked waves traveling across the cortex. While for a long time these waves were thought to disappear in awake animals and during normal sleep, our recent work has revealed traveling waves in these complex activity states. Their overall role in neural computation, however, remains poorly understood.
In my research, we have introduced new computational methods for detection and quantification of spatiotemporal patterns in noisy multisite recordings. At the scale of a single cortical region, these methods have revealed that small visual stimuli consistently evoke waves traveling from the point of input to primary visual cortex in the awake monkey (Muller et al., Nature Communications 5, 2014). At the whole-brain scale, the 11-15 Hz sleep "spindle", a brain oscillation causally implicated in consolidation of long-term memory, is consistently organized as a rotating wave traveling in a preferred direction (Muller et al., eLife 5, 2016). These results indicate that traveling waves play a role in organizing neural activity during multiple behavioral states. In upcoming work, we aim to address the network-level mechanisms generating traveling waves and complex spatiotemporal patterns, under the general aim of understanding their role in neural computation.
Hosted by:
Host: Francisco Valero-Cuevas, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145/145A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Mon, Feb 26, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Frank Doyle, Harvard University
Talk Title: Controlling the Artificial Pancreas
Abstract: Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a chronic autoimmune disease affecting approximately 35 million individuals world-wide, with associated annual healthcare costs in the US estimated to be approximately $15 billion. Current treatment requires either multiple daily insulin injections or continuous subcutaneous (SC) insulin infusion (CSII) delivered via an insulin infusion pump. Both treatment modes necessitate frequent blood glucose measurements to determine the daily insulin requirements for maintaining near-normal blood glucose levels.
More than 30 years ago, the idea of an artificial endocrine pancreas for patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) was envisioned. The closed-loop concept consisted of an insulin syringe, a blood glucose analyzer, and a transmitter. In the ensuing years, a number of theoretical research studies were performed with numerical simulations to demonstrate the relevance of advanced process control design to the artificial pancreas, with delivery algorithms ranging from simple PID, to fuzzy logic, to H-infinity, to model predictive control. With the advent of continuous glucose sensing, which reports interstitial glucose concentrations approximately every minute, and the development of hardware and algorithms to communicate with and control insulin pumps, the vision of closed-loop control of blood glucose is approaching a reality.
In the last 15 years, our research group has been working with medical doctors on clinical demonstrations of feedback control algorithms for the artificial pancreas. In this talk, I will outline the difficulties inherent in controlling physiological variables, the challenges with regulatory approval of such devices, and will describe a number of process systems engineering algorithms we have tested in clinical experiments for the artificial pancreas.
Biography: Frank Doyle is the John A. Paulson Dean of the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he also is the John A. & Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor. Prior to that he was the Mellichamp Professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he was the Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Director of the UCSB/MIT/Caltech Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, and the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering. He received a B.S.E. degree from Princeton, C.P.G.S. from Cambridge, and Ph.D. from Caltech, all in Chemical Engineering. He has also held faculty appointments at Purdue University and the University of Delaware, and held visiting positions at DuPont, Weyerhaeuser, and Stuttgart University. He has been recognized as a Fellow of multiple professional organizations including: IEEE, IFAC, AIMBE, and the AAAS. He was the President for the IEEE Control Systems Society in 2015, and is the Vice President of the International Federation of Automatic Control. In 2005, he was awarded the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from the AIChE for his innovative work in systems biology, and in 2015 received the Control Engineering Practice Award from the American Automatic Control Council for his development of the artificial pancreas. In 2016, he was inducted as a Fellow into the National Academy of Medicine for his work on biomedical control. His research interests are in systems biology, network science, modeling and analysis of circadian rhythms, and drug delivery for diabetes.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu
More Information: Doyle.png
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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CS Colloquium: Satish Kumar Thittamaranahalli (USC) – The Constraint Composite Graph and Its Applications
Tue, Feb 27, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Satish Kumar Thittamaranahalli, USC Information Sciences Institute
Talk Title: The Constraint Composite Graph and Its Applications
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: The weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP) is a fundamental combinatorial problem with applications in such diverse areas as artificial intelligence, statistical physics, computer vision, and information theory. In this talk, I will present new methods for efficiently solving the WCSP. Central to these methods is the idea of the constraint composite graph (CCG). The CCG provides a unifying computational framework for simultaneously exploiting the structure of the variable-interactions in a given WCSP as well as the structure of the weighted constraints in it. I will present some important applications of the idea of the CCG in kernelization of combinatorial problems, the revival of message passing algorithms, and in other domains (if time permits).
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: Dr. Satish Kumar Thittamaranahalli (T. K. Satish Kumar) leads the Collaboratory for Algorithmic Techniques and Artificial Intelligence at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California. He has published extensively on numerous topics in Artificial Intelligence spanning such diverse areas as Constraint Reasoning, Planning and Scheduling, Probabilistic Reasoning, Robotics, Combinatorial Optimization, Approximation and Randomization, Heuristic Search, Model-Based Reasoning, Knowledge Representation and Spatio-Temporal Reasoning. He has served on the Program Committees of many international conferences in Artificial Intelligence and is a winner of the 2016 Best Robotics Paper Award and the 2005 Best Student Paper Award from the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling. Dr. Kumar received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in March 2005. In the past, he has also been a Visiting Student at the NASA Ames Research Center, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, a Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of West Florida, and a Senior Research and Development Scientist at Mission Critical Technologies.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651
Tue, Feb 27, 2018 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. John R. Birge, Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
Talk Title: MCMC Methods for Dynamic Stochastic Optimization
Host: Prof. Suvrajeet Sen
More Information: February 27, 2018.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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George A. Bekey Distinguished Lecture with Professor Stefan Savage (UCSD)
Tue, Feb 27, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Stefan Savage, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Modern Automotive Vulnerabilities: Problems, Causes and Outcomes
Series: Computer Science Keynote Series
Abstract: Over the last six years, a range of research has transformed our understanding of automobiles. What we traditionally envisioned as mere mechanical conveyances are now more widely appreciated as complex distributed systems 'with wheels'. A car purchased today has virtually all aspects of its physical behavior mediated through dozens of microprocessors, themselves networked internally, and connected to a range of external digital channels. As a result, software vulnerabilities in automotive firmware potentially allow an adversary to obtain arbitrary control over the vehicle. Indeed, multiple research groups have been able to demonstrate such remote control of unmodified automobiles from a variety of manufacturers. In this talk, I'll highlight how our understanding of automotive security vulnerabilities has changed over time, how unique challenges in the automotive sector give rise to these problems and create non-intuitive constraints on their solutions and the key role played by the research community driving industry and government response.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Stefan Savage is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Applied History from Carnegie Mellon University. Savage is a full-time empiricist, whose research interests lie at the intersection of computer security, distributed systems and networking. He currently serves as co-director of UCSD's Center for Network Systems (CNS) and for the Center for Evidence based Security Research (CESR). Savage is a MacArthur Fellow, a Sloan Fellow, an ACM Fellow, and is a recipient of the ACM Prize in Computing and the ACM SIGOPS Weiser Award. He currently holds the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Chair in Information and Computer Science, but is a fairly down-to-earth guy and only writes about himself in the third person when asked.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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CS Colloquium: Yinzhi Cao (Lehigh University) – Testing and Repairing Machine Learning Systems in Adversarial Environment
Wed, Feb 28, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yinzhi Cao, Lehigh University
Talk Title: Testing and Repairing Machine Learning Systems in Adversarial Environment
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Machine learning (ML) systems are increasingly deployed in safety- and security-critical domains such as self-driving cars and malware detection, where the system correctness for corner case inputs are crucial. Existing testing of ML system correctness depends heavily on manually labeled data and therefore often fails to expose erroneous behaviors for rare inputs.
In this talk, I will present the first framework to test and repair ML systems, especially in an adversarial environment. In the first part, I will introduce DeepXplore, a whitebox testing framework of real-world deep learning (DL) systems. Our evaluation shows that DeepXplore can successfully find thousands of erroneous corner case behaviors, e.g., self-driving cars crashing into guard rails and malware masquerading as benign software. In the second part, I will introduce machine unlearning, a general, efficient approach to repair an ML system exhibiting erroneous behaviors. Our evaluation, on four diverse learning systems and real-world workloads, shows that machine unlearning is general, effective, fast, and easy to use.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium. Please note, due to limited capacity in RTH 115, seats will be first come first serve.
Biography: Yinzhi Cao is an assistant professor at Lehigh University. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Northwestern University and worked at Columbia University as a postdoc. Before that, he obtained his B.E. degree in Electronics Engineering at Tsinghua University in China. His research mainly focuses on the security and privacy of the Web, smartphones, and machine learning. He has published many papers at various security and system conferences, such as IEEE S&P (Oakland), NDSS, CCS, and SOSP. His JShield system has been adopted by Huawei, the world's largest telecommunication company. His past work was widely featured by over 30 media outlets, such as NSF Science Now (Episode 38), CCTV News, IEEE Spectrum, Yahoo! News and ScienceDaily. He received two best paper awards at SOSP'17 and IEEE CNS'15 respectively.
Host: Muhammad Naveed
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 115
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Wed, Feb 28, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Magnus Egerstedt, Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Long-range autonomy and constraint-based coordination of multi-robot systems
Abstract: By now, we have a fairly good understanding of how to design coordinated control strategies for making teams of mobile robots achieve geometric objectives in a distributed manner, such as assembling shapes or covering areas. But, the mapping from high-level tasks to geometric objectives is not particularly well understood. In this talk, we investigate this topic in the context of long-range autonomy, i.e., we consider teams of robots, deployed in an environment over a sustained period of time, that can be recruited to perform a number of different tasks in a distributed, safe, and provably correct manner. This development will involve the composition of multiple barrier certificates for encoding the tasks and safety constraints, as well as a detour into ecology as a way of understanding how persistent environmental monitoring, as a special instantiation of the long-range autonomy concept, can be achieved by studying animals with low-energy life-styles, such as the three-toed sloth.
Biography: Magnus Egerstedt is the Executive Director for the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Professor and the Julian T. Hightower Chair in Systems and Controls in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received the M.S. degree in Engineering Physics and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, the B.A. degree in Philosophy from Stockholm University, and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Harvard University. Dr. Egerstedt is a Fellow of the IEEE and a recipient of a number of research and teaching awards, including the Ragazzini Award from the American Automatic Control Council.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu
More Information: egerstedt.jpg (JPEG Image, 623 × 779 pixels).pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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CAIS Seminar: Dr. Henry Kautz (University of Rochester) – Mining Social Media to Improve Public Health
Wed, Feb 28, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Henry Kautz, University of Rochester
Talk Title: Mining Social Media to Improve Public Health
Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: People posting to social media on smartphones can be viewed as an organic sensor network for public health data, picking up information about the spread of disease, lifestyle factors that influence health, and pinpointing sources of disease. We show how a faint but actionable signal can be detected in vast amounts of social media data using statistical natural language and social network models. We present case studies of predicting influenza transmission and per-city rates, discovering patterns of alcohol consumption in different neighborhoods, and tracking down the sources of foodborne illness.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Dr. Henry Kautz is the Robin & Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. He has served as department head at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, and as a full professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2010 he was elected President of the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and in 2016 was elected Chair of the AAAS Section on Information, Computing, and Communication. His research in artificial intelligence, pervasive computing, and healthcare applications has led him to be honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, and Fellow of the AAAI.
Host: Milind Tambe
Location: Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall (of Philosophy) (MHP) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
