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Events for February 19, 2016
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Better and Faster Images of the Thinking Brain
Fri, Feb 19, 2016 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Douglas C. Noll, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Talk Title: Better and Faster Images of the Thinking Brain
Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series
Abstract: Functional brain imaging using MRI (functional MRI or fMRI) has been available for about 20 years, and yet the technology of fMRI has continued to evolve quite rapidly. In this presentation, I will present that basic physiology and methods for fMRI and then discuss several advances to acquisition and image reconstruction for fMRI. I will explore a new approach for fMRI that reuses the MRI signal, thus potentially improving the signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio of fMRI studies. The technology of MRI excitation required to implement this approach will be discussed. I will also discuss and demonstrate a method to acquire multiple simultaneous slices using a non-Cartesian acquisition method. Lastly, I will discuss a new image acquisition and reconstruction approach that makes use of mathematical concepts in sparse sampling and low-rank signal representations. This approach has the potential to speed substantially the fMRI acquisition to allow the separation of undesired physiological signals and the imaging of dynamic network processes in the human brain.
Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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Teamcore Seminar: Akshat Kumar (Singapore Management University) - Automated Planning and Decision Making Using Probabilistic Inference
Fri, Feb 19, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Akshat Kumar, Singapore Management University
Talk Title: Automated Planning and Decision Making Using Probabilistic Inference
Series: Teamcore Seminar
Abstract: Automated planning and decision making is a key building block of artificial intelligence. Traditionally, approaches for decision making and planning have evolved somewhat separately from that of machine learning. In this talk, I will highlight the duality between planning and learning. I will show that several decision making problems in probabilistic graphical models (such as the problem of maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation) with applications in multiagent systems, bioinformatics, and computer vision can be viewed from a machine learning (ML) perspective using the framework of maximum likelihood estimation. Similarly, I will show how classical planning problems such as finding the shortest path in a graph can also be viewed from an ML perspective. As a result of this connection between planning and learning, I will show how probabilistic inference approaches can be used for planning, and their benefits. I will conclude by highlighting how such planning-as-inference perspective has recently helped address challenging sequential decision making problems in multiagent systems.
Host: Teamcore Group
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program Colloquium
Fri, Feb 19, 2016 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
University Calendar
Join us for a presentation by Dr. William Patzert, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory titled, "Climate Whiplash: From Super Drought to Godzilla El Niño."
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ramon Borunda/Academic Services
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EE-EP Seminar - Kejie Fang, Friday, February 19th at 2:00pm in EEB 132
Fri, Feb 19, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kejie Fang, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Integrated Hybrid Photonics-”Emergent Control and Application for Light and Sound at Nanoscale
Abstract: The bottleneck of bandwidth limitation and power dissipation in today's electronic microchips is conflicting with the exceeding demand for information communication and processing. Light, due to its intrinsic high frequency and environment-insensitivity (owing to its charge neutrality), is expected to bring solutions to this fundamental challenge. By the same token, certain functionalities in optical information processing will require a hybrid architecture interfacing different materials and light-matter interactions. With technical advances in nanofabrication, it is now possible to manipulate light and enhance light-matter interactions in on-chip, nanoscale photonic structures.
In this talk, I will present my research in two integrated hybrid photonic architectures. First is optoelectronic integration, where we achieved novel active control of light through an electric drive which dynamically modulates the refractive index of silicon photonic structures, leading to an effective magnetic field for photons and topological light propagation. These novel interactions are unreachable in static or passive dielectrics and provide a solution for on-chip optical isolation that is essential for stable and energy efficient optical communication. In the second part of my talk, I will present work on another hybrid architecture that interfaces light and sound: optomechanical crystals. This architecture allows for simultaneously engineering of optical and mechanical properties as well as photon-phonon interactions. Combining electron beam lithography and scanning probe microscope tuning, we fabricated cavity-optomechanical circuits on silicon microchips to realize radiation-pressure controlled microwave phonon routing. We applied these devices for microwave-over-optical signal processing with low energy and high efficiency. The nanoscale mechanical vibration is also used to achieve optical non-reciprocity in the optomechanical circuit. These achievements hold promise for hybrid photonic technology for light-based communication and processing in an integrated, chip-scale platform.
Biography: Kejie Fang is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Applied Physics at California Institute of Technology, working with Prof. Oskar Painter. He received his B.S. in physics from Peking University, and his M.S. in electrical engineering, Ph.D. in physics, both from Stanford University under the supervision of Prof. Shanhui Fan. Kejie's research interests include optomechanics, nanophotonics, and spin photonics, with a theme to develop novel chip scale devices and systems for light-based applications including optical information communication and processing. During his Ph.D., he proposed and demonstrated for the first time an effective magnetic field for photons which provides a solution for on-chip optical isolation. At Caltech, he developed integrated cavity-optomechanical circuits for on-chip information processing using nanoscale optical and acoustic excitations. Kejie has published 15 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals including Nature Photonics, Physical Review Letters, and Nature Communications. Kejie was a William R. and Sara Hart Kimball Fellow at Stanford University and also a recipient of OSA Outstanding Reviewer Award in 2014.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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NL Seminar Chasing vaccination in social media: Narrative discovery from an unstructured corpus of text
Fri, Feb 19, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ehsan Ebrahimzadeh , UCLA
Talk Title: Chasing vaccination in social media: Narrative discovery from an unstructured corpus of text
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: The measles outbreak in California was a serious public health crisis. Health officials attributed the outbreak to the increasing number of children whose parents had secured exemptions from vaccination for various vaccine preventable diseases VPDs. We believe that exemption seeking is part of a broader culture of distrust driven in large part by stories circulating in social media. An under-standing of the dynamics of this broader culture is necessary if we are to develop health policies that do not simply address outcomes but rather the cultural basis for decisions leading to those outcomes. We reveal the dynamics of exemption seeking and the greater culture of distrust endemic to these sites by developing a generative statistical mechanical model where stories are represented as net- works with actants such as parents, medical professionals, and religious institutions as nodes, and their various relationships as edges. We estimate the latent but unknown stories circulating on these sites by modeling the posts as a sampling of the hidden story graph. Working with a data set of 2 million posts crawled from parenting sites over a 5 year period, we uncover a strong, persistent story signal in which parents, driven by a distrust of government and medical institutions, devise strategies to secure exemptions for their children from required vaccinations. In these stories, it is the vaccines and not the VPDs that pose a threat to the children. Our method of analyzing social media conversations and the exchange of stories at scale can provide an alert mechanism to health officials, help lay the groundwork for devising community-specific messaging interventions, and inform policy making.
Biography: Ehsan Ebrahimzadeh is a PhD candidate in the Electrical Engineering Department of UCLA, where he is simultaneously working towards my his degree in Applied Mathematics. Broadly speaking, he is interested in Statistics, Applied probability, and Data Analytics. Before joining UCLA in 2013, he received his MASc degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Waterloo, and BSc degrees in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology.
Host: Xing Shi 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/
