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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 01, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mr. Clifford Cousins, Patent Prosecution Professional, The Boeing Company
Talk Title: Inventions, Patents, and Protecting our Innovation Investment
Host: EHP and Dr. Prata
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amanda McCraven
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PhD Defense
Fri, Feb 01, 2019 @ 01:01 PM - 02:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shanyuan Niu, Ph.D. Candidate, Materials Science
Talk Title: Perovskite Chalcogenides: Emerging Semiconductors for Visible to Infrared Optoelectronics
Abstract: Rational design of new materials or identification of novel functionalities in underexplored materials, especially semiconductors, has been a key contributor to various electronic, photonic, and energy technologies. Transition metal perovskite chalcogenides (TMPCs), an emerging class of materials with rich tunability and functionality, are explored as stable, environmentally friendly semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. They can be viewed as the inorganic alternatives to hybrid halide perovskites, and chalcogenide counterparts of perovskite oxides with desirable optoelectronic properties in the visible to infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. TMPCs with perovskite and related structures can adopt three-dimensional, quasi-two-dimensional, and quasi-one-dimensional structural networks. Shanyuan will talk about the synthesis, characterization, and physical properties of TMPCs. The focus will be on several branches, including photovoltaic potential and anomalous bandgap evolution in three-dimensional and quasi-two-dimensional TMPCs, and building infrared optical anisotropy in quasi-one-dimensional TMPCs.
Location: Charles Lee Powell Hall (PHE) - 223
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Feb 01, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. David R. Smith, Professor, Duke University
Talk Title: Engineering Systems with Metamaterials
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - David Smith.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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Fall 2018 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Mon, Feb 04, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shaunak Bopardikar, Michigan State University
Talk Title: Sensor selection via randomized sampling
Abstract: With continual advancement of numerous technologies, multiple classes of smart devices and vehicles are being developed and improved around the world that promise several novel applications. Notable examples of these are robotic surveillance of large environments, smart mobility and transportation, brain activity monitoring among humans, disease monitoring and control, to name a few. A common theme among these applications is the efficient use of only a select few sensors that are expected to provide an accurate description of the underlying complex system. This motivates a natural question of how many sensors are sufficient to obtain a desired level of accuracy to observe the underlying complex system?
This talk will be centered on the problem of, given a linear dynamical system, how does one select a subset of the sensors such that the observability Gramian of the new system is approximately equal to that of the original system? I will first formalize a randomized algorithm that samples the sensors with replacement as per specified distributions and will present explicit bounds on the number of samples required by the algorithm to probabilistically satisfy the Gramian requirement. I will then demonstrate how the randomized procedure can be used for recursive state estimation using fewer sensors than the original system and can yield a high probability upper bound on the initial error covariance. Finally, I will discuss some recent extensions of the randomized techniques and present future directions for this work.
Biography: Shaunak D. Bopardikar is an Assistant Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and is affiliated with the Center for Connected Autonomous Networked Vehicles for Active Safety (CANVAS) at the Michigan State University. His research interests lie in scalable computation and optimization, in cyber-physical security and in autonomous motion planning and control. He received the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) and Master of Technology (M.Tech.) degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, in 2010. From 2004 to 2005, he was an Engineer with General Electric India Technology Center, Bangalore, India. From 2011 to 2018, he was a Staff Research Scientist with the Controls group of United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) at East Hartford, CT, USA and at Berkeley, CA. Prior to joining UTRC, Dr. Bopardikar worked as a post-doctoral associate at UC Santa Barbara (2010-2011) during which he developed randomized algorithms for solving large matrix games. He is a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society, has over 40 refereed journal and conference publications and has 2 inventions filed for a U.S. patent.
Host: Jyotirmoy Vinay Deshmukh, jdeshmuk@usc.edu
More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Spring/bopardikar.html
More Information: 19.02.04 Shaunak D.Bopardikar CSCUSC Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Spring/bopardikar.html
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Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651
Tue, Feb 05, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Harriet B. Nembhard, Professor and Department Head, Oregon State University
Talk Title: Robotics, Sensors, and Systems to Advance Healthcare Delivery
Host: Dr. Julie Higle
More Information: February 5, 2019.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - - Lyman L. Handy Colloquia
Tue, Feb 05, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professir Chris G. Van de Walle, Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Hydrogen interactions with materials: From transistors to fuel cells
Abstract: Hydrogen is almost always unintentionally present as an impurity in materials, and often significantly affects their properties: structural materials are weakened by hydrogen embrittlement, semiconductors suffer a hydrogen-induced decrease in conductivity, and battery electrodes hydrogen can degrade when exposed to hydrogen. The application of hydrogen as an energy source in fuel cells lends additional urgency to understanding hydrogen interactions with materials. State-of-the-art first-principles calculations have allowed us to elucidate the many facets of this behavior. A systematic study of hydrogen in a wide range of hosts has revealed the existence of a universal alignment for the electronic level of hydrogen in semiconductors, insulators, and even aqueous solutions. The alignment allows predicting the electrical activity of hydrogen in any host material and shows that the physics of hydrogen turns out to be unexpectedly connected to other important problems in materials physics and electrochemistry.
Biography: Chris Van de Walle is a Distinguished Professor of Materials and the inaugural recipient of the Herbert Kroemer Endowed Chair in Materials Science at the UC, Santa Barbara. Prior to joining UCSB in 2004, he was a Principal Scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford in 1986 and was a postdoc at IBM (1986-1988) and a Senior Member of Research Staff at Philips Laboratories (1988-1991). He has published over 400 research papers, holds 24 patents and has given over 200 invited and plenary talks. Van de Walle is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the APS, AVS, AAAS, MRS, IEEE, and the recipient of a Humboldt Award for Senior US Scientist, the David Adler Award from the APS, the Medard W. Welch Award from the AVS, and the TMS John Bardeen Award.
Host: Dr. Kalia
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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AME Seminar
Wed, Feb 06, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ran Dai, Ohio State University
Talk Title: Planning and Decision-Making for Energy Efficient and Sustainable Autonomous Systems
Abstract: Many autonomous systems will benefit from prolonged operational time and reduced power consumption in a variety of long-duration missions, ranging from terrestrial operating domain to interplanetary space exploration. Due to limited power capacity, dynamic operating environments, complex system behaviors, and strict mission constraints, it is challenging to realize full autonomy with capabilities of sustained power supply and energy efficient operations. Without human intervention, real-time planning and decision-making, including both motion planning and logic/reasoning decisions, play a critical role in assuring the reliability and performance of such systems toward accomplishing the mission objectives.
This talk will present our work on developing vision-based energy awareness, sophisticated modeling approach, highly implementable optimization algorithms, and machine learning based auto-tuning method that collectively contribute to advanced planning and decision-making strategies for energy efficient and sustainable autonomous systems. Applications in two types of autonomous systems will be discussed. One is solar-powered ground robot that harvests energy from the environment and charges the storage batteries as backup to extend the endurance time or realize persistent operations. The other type of application focuses on space vehicles in complex missions involving multiphase or hybrid operations where onboard propellant is limited and timely ground support is unavailable. The overall objective of real-time planning and decision-making for both types of autonomous systems is to realize high-level autonomy in energy harvesting and utilization under dynamic environments, complex operations, and mission constraints. Results obtained in virtual simulations are verified in real-world environments or experimental platforms that mimic the mission challenges, leading to a synthesized theoretical and experimental framework for evaluating improved performance of this transformational technique.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 06, 2019 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mani Srivastava , University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: Quality of Time: Enabling Robust, Secure, and Efficient IoT
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Nanoscale electronics, pervasive connectivity, and cloud computing have together ushered in the Internet of Things (IoT). Accurate and reliable knowledge of time is essential for IoT systems to perform their tasks via a complex web of feedback loops where data are collected from myriads of sensors; distributed and processed multi-tiered networks and distributed computing substrates; and, eventually influences and controls the states of natural, engineered, and human systems. Applications depend on precise knowledge of time with a diversity of semantics for purposes such as coordinated sensing, efficient wireless communication, correctly ordered computation, location awareness, and appropriately choreographed actuation.
Despite it being so critical, time is taken for granted with little thought given to the uncertainty in the knowledge of time. The uncertainty in the knowledge of time varies across network nodes, hardware and software layers, and over time. Moreover, many of the methods used in modern computing systems for improved performance make uncertainty worse. Oblivious of these uncertainties system designs typically overcompensate, and resulting systems that are over-designed, in-efficient, and fragile. This talk presents research under Roseline, an NSF CPS Frontier Project led by UCLA with collaborators from CMU, UCSB, UCSD, and the University of Utah, where we formalize uncertainty in the knowledge of time as a "Quality of Time (QoT)" metric that is made observable and controllable in order to robustly support time-aware applications across the edge-middle-cloud tiers. QoT is made visible to the applications so that they can adapt; exchanged across the hardware and software layers so as to tune clock generation, OS scheduling etc.; and propagated across the network so as to optimize distributed coordination. The talk will describe the enabling system abstractions and run-time mechanisms that we have developed to help realize the QoT concept. Lastly, QoT can also be manipulated by adversarial actors such as a compromised OS and network network nodes, causing time-aware applications to fail. The talk will close by describing some of the vulnerabilities that exist in current systems, and methods to mitigate them.
Biography: Mani Srivastava is on the faculty at UCLA where he is associated with the ECE Department with a joint appointment in the CS Department. His research is broadly in the area of networked human-cyber-physical systems, and spans problems across the entire spectrum of applications, architectures, algorithms, and technologies. His current interests include issues of energy efficiency, privacy and security, data quality, and variability in the context of systems and applications for mHealth and sustainable buildings. He is a Fellow of both the ACM and the IEEE. More information about his research is available at his lab's website: http://www.nesl.ucla.edu and his Google Scholar profile at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X2Qs7XYAAAAJ.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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CAIS Seminar: Tanya Berger-Wolf (University of Illinois at Chicago) - Computational Behavioral Ecology: Animals as Mobile Social Users
Wed, Feb 06, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf, University of Illinois at Chicago
Talk Title: Computational Behavioral Ecology: Animals as Mobile Social Users
Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: New data collection technology, such as GPS, high definition cameras, UAVs, genotyping, and crowdsourcing, are generating data about wild populations that are orders of magnitude richer than any previously collected. Unfortunately, in this domain as in many others, our ability to analyze data lags substantially behind our ability to collect it. In this talk, Dr. Berger-Wolf will show how computational approaches can be part of every stage of the scientific process of understanding animal sociality, from intelligent data collection (crowdsourcing photographs and identifying individual animals from photographs by stripes and spots) to hypothesis formulation (by designing a novel computational framework for analysis of dynamic social networks), and provide scientific insight into collective behavior of zebras, baboons, and other social animals, including humans.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she heads the Computational Population Biology Lab. As a computational ecologist, her research is at the unique intersection of computer science, wildlife biology, and social sciences. Berger-Wolf is also a director and co-founder of the AI for conservation non-profit Wild Me, home of the Wildbook project, which recently enabled the first-of-its-kind complete species census of the endangered Grevy's zebra, using photographs taken by ordinary citizens in Kenya.
Host: Milind Tambe
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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CS Colloquium: Bonnie Lei (Microsoft) - AI for Earth: Tackling Global Environmental Challenges
Thu, Feb 07, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bonnie Lei, Microsoft
Talk Title: AI for Earth: Tackling Global Environmental Challenges
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Monitoring Earth's conditions, including our air, water, land, and the well-being of our wildlife helps us better understand the dire environmental challenges our planet is currently facing. But we need the power of technological approaches such as AI to convert this vast amount of data into implementable insights fast enough to better manage our natural resources.
This inspired Microsoft to launch the AI for Earth program in 2017, committing $50 million over the next 5 years to help researchers and innovators leverage artificial intelligence technology for environmental solutions in the areas of climate, water, agriculture, and biodiversity conservation. Bonnie will share several examples of how AI for Earth and its partners have done this during the program's first year, including:
- USC Center for AI and Society's PAWS algorithm: integrates machine learning to predict poachers' behavior and plan the most effective patrol routes for rangers in protected areas
- Wild Me: Using computer vision and deep learning algorithms to scan and identify individual animals from scientific data and social media
- Project Premonition: using cloud-scale genomics and machine learning algorithms to better understand biodiversity from blood-sucking insects
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Bonnie Lei is currently the project manager for Microsoft's AI for Earth program, where she leads its strategic partnerships and grants program. Previously, she traveled the globe as an environmental scientist and conservationist. She helped start the marine program for Wildlife Conservation Society in Myanmar, discovered a new sea slug species in the Caribbean, and researched climate adaptation of endangered penguins in South Africa. She has degrees in biology and economics & business from Harvard and Tsinghua Universities.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 08, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Char Miller, W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis & History, Pomona College
Talk Title: It Never Rains (Except When it Does): Drought and Deluge in the Making of Southern California
Host: EHP and Dr. Prata
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amanda McCraven
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Essentials of Composites ManufacturingSat, Feb 09, 2019 @ 08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
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.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/chemical-engineering-materials-science/essentials-composites-manufacturing/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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CS Colloquium: Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) - Automated Resource Management in Large-Scale Networked Systems
Tue, Feb 12, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: Automated Resource Management in Large-Scale Networked Systems
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Internet applications rely on large-scale networked environments such as the cloud for their backend support. In these multi-tenanted environments, various stakeholders have diverse goals. The objective of the infrastructure provider is to increase revenue by utilizing the resources efficiently. Applications, on the other hand, want to meet their performance requirements at minimal cost. However, estimating the exact amount of resources required to meet the application needs is a difficult task, even for expert users. Easy workarounds employed for tackling this problem, such as resource over-provisioning, negatively impact the goals of the provider, applications, or both.
In this talk, I will discuss the design of application-aware self-optimizing systems through automated resource management that helps meet the varied goals of the provider and applications in large-scale networked environments. The key steps in closed-loop resource management include learning of application resource needs, efficient scheduling of resources, and adaptation to variations in real time. I will describe how I apply this high-level approach in two distinct environments using (a) Morpheus in enterprise clusters, and (b) Patronus in cellular provider networks with geo-distributed micro data centers. I will also touch upon my related work in application-specific context at the intersection of network scheduling and deep learning. I will conclude with my vision for self-optimizing systems including fully automated clouds and an elastic geo-distributed platform for thousands of micro data centers.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests lie in the areas of computer networking and systems with a focus on building application-aware self-optimizing systems through automated resource management. She is a winner of the Facebook Graduate Fellowship (2017-2019) and the Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship (2017-2018). She was invited to attend the Rising Stars in EECS workshop at MIT (2018).
Website: http://abdujyo2.web.engr.illinois.edu
Host: Barath Raghavan
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100 D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651
Tue, Feb 12, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Simge Küçükyavuz, Associate Professor, Northwestern University
Talk Title: Risk-Averse Set Covering Problems
Host: Dr. Phebe Vayanos
More Information: February 12, 2019.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - Distinguished Lecture Series
Tue, Feb 12, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Thomas F. Jaramillo, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University
Talk Title: Catalysts and processes for the sustainable production and use of fuels and chemicals
Abstract: Society has benefitted tremendously from the science and engineering efforts that have brought crucial fuels and chemical products to market at a global-scale based on fossil feedstocks: oil, coal, and natural gas. This includes conventional liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, in addition to many other important products such as plastics (e.g. polyethylene) and fertilizer (i.e. ammonia, NH3). Continuing to use fossil-based resources at such high rates, however, could potentially lead to troubling consequences ahead. This motivates the development of new chemical processes to produce the same kinds of fuels and chemicals that we rely on today, however using renewable energy and sustainable feedstocks instead.
In this talk we will discuss new processes that employ renewable energy (e.g. wind and solar) to power the production of fuels and chemicals in a sustainable manner. This effort is largely motivated by the dropping costs of renewable electricity, the growing penetration of renewables into energy markets, and the need for storing variable electricity. Central to this theme is an effort to develop catalyst materials and associated processes capable of driving important chemical transformations in a sustainable manner involving renewable energy. Specific examples include the production of hydrogen (H2),1,2 carbon-based products (e.g. hydrocarbons, alcohols),3 and ammonia (NH3) fertilizer.4
The development of catalysts with appropriate properties can serve as the basis of new, renewable pathways to produce the large-scale fuels and chemicals that could play a major role in reaching sustainability goals for the globe.
References
1. Z.W. Seh, J. Kibsgaard, C.F. Dickens, I. Chorkendorff, J.K. Nørskov, T.F. Jaramillo. Science, 355, 6321 (2017).
2. J.W.D. Ng, T.R. Hellstern, J. Kibsgaard, A.C. Hinckley, J.D. Benck, and T.F. Jaramillo. ChemSusChem, 8, 3512-3519 (2015).
3. C. Hahn, T. Hatsukade, Y.-G. Kim, A. Vailionis, J.H. Baricuatro, D.C. Higgins, S.A. Nitopi, M.P. Soriaga, and T.F. Jaramillo. Proc. Nat. Adad. Sci., 114, 5918-“5923 (2017).
4. J.M. McEnaney, A.R. Singh, J.A. Schwalbe, J. Kibsgaard, J.C. Lin, M. Cargnello, T.F. Jaramillo, and J.K. Nørskov. Energy Environ. Sci, 10, 1621-1630 (2017).
Host: Dr. Yoon
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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AME Seminar
Wed, Feb 13, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Quan Nguyen, MIT
Talk Title: Extremely Agile and Robust Legged Robots
Abstract: The mobility of man-made machines is still limited to relatively flat grounds, whereas humans and animals can traverse almost all surfaces of the earth including rocky cliffs or collapsed buildings.
In this talk, I will pose the question How can we make robots with similar morphologies achieve such extremely agile and robust behaviors? Enabling robots to exhibit such behaviors will one day facilitate robotic space exploration, disaster response, construction, etc. Furthermore, such time and safety critical missions also require robots to operate swiftly and stably while dealing with high levels of uncertainty and large external disturbances.
To achieve these capabilities, a unified adaptive control framework will be presented, that enables the ability to enforce stability and safety critical constraints arising from robotic motion tasks under a high level of model uncertainty. Next, I will present novel optimization-based approaches to address the challenge of dynamic robotic walking over randomly generated stepping stones, and optimized jumping on high platforms. I will then show how these can be translated to real world experiments, that enables (a) ATRIAS, a bipedal robot at CMU, to walk dynamically on stepping stones, and (b) MIT Cheetah 3 robot to jump up onto and jump down from a desk.
Host: AME Department
Location: 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Wed, Feb 13, 2019 @ 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Qin Ba, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, USC- Civil Engineering
Talk Title: Computational Frameworks for Transportation Systems with E-Hailing Services and Network Controls
Abstract: See attachment
More Information: Qin Ba_Seminar Announcement, Feb 13.pdf
Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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CS Colloquium: Skip Rizzo (USC) - The Birth of Intelligent Virtual Human Agents in Clinical Healthcare
Wed, Feb 13, 2019 @ 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Skip Rizzo, University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies
Talk Title: The Birth of Intelligent Virtual Human Agents in Clinical Healthcare
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, a significant scientific literature has evolved regarding the mental/physical health outcomes from the use of what we now refer to as Clinical Virtual Reality (VR). While the preponderance of clinical work with VR has focused on building immersive virtual worlds for treating anxiety disorders with exposure therapy, providing distracting immersive experiences for acute pain management, and supporting physical rehabilitation with game-based interactive content, there are other emerging areas that have extended the impact of VR in healthcare. One such area involves the evolution of conversational virtual human (VH) agents. This has been driven by seminal research and development leading to the creation of highly interactive, artificially intelligent and natural language capable VHs that can engage real human users in a credible fashion. No longer at the level of a prop to add context or minimal faux interaction in a virtual world, VH representations can now be designed to perceive and act in a 3D virtual world, engage in face-to-face spoken dialogues with real users, and in some cases, can exhibit human-like emotional reactions. This presentation will provide a brief rationale and overview of research that has shown the benefits derived from the use of virtual humans in healthcare applications. Research will be detailed reporting positive outcomes from studies using VHs in the role of virtual patients for training novice clinicians, as job interview/social skill trainers for persons on the autism spectrum, and as online healthcare support agents with university students and military Veterans. The computational capacity now exists to deliver similar VH interactions by way of mobile device technology. This capability can support the "anywhere/anytime" availability of VH characters as agents for engaging users with healthcare information and could provide opportunities for improving access to care and emotional support for a wide range of wellness and clinical applications for a variety of populations. This work will be discussed along with a look into the future of this next major movement in Clinical VR.
RSVP: https://goo.gl/forms/TGfFn2X6h0XGQMun1
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Skip Rizzo is a clinical psychologist and Director of Medical VR at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. He is also a Research Professor with the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology. Over the last 25 years, Skip has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation across the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. This work has focused on PTSD, TBI, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer's disease, stroke and other clinical conditions. He has also driven an extensive research program on the use of intelligent virtual human agents for clinical training, healthcare information support, and clinical assessment. In spite of the diversity of these clinical R&D areas, the common thread that drives all of his work with digital technologies involves the study of how Virtual Reality simulations can be usefully applied to human healthcare beyond what is possible with traditional 20th Century methods.
Host: AAAI@USC
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Closing the Gap between Quantum Algorithms and Machines with Hardware-Software Co-Design
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Fred Chong, University of Chicago
Talk Title: Closing the Gap between Quantum Algorithms and Machines with Hardware-Software Co-Design
Abstract: Quantum computing is at an inflection point, where 72-qubit (quantum bit) machines are being tested, 100-qubit machines are just around the corner, and even 1000-qubit machines are perhaps only a few years away. These machines have the potential to fundamentally change our concept of what is computable and demonstrate practical applications in areas such as quantum chemistry, optimization, and quantum simulation.
Yet a significant resource gap remains between practical quantum algorithms and real machines. The key to closing this gap is to develop techniques to specialize algorithms for hardware and vice versa. Quantum computing is the ultimate vertically-integrated domain-specific application, and computer engineers are sorely needed to tackle grand challenges that include programming language design, software and hardware verification, debugging and visualization tools, defining and perforating abstraction boundaries, cross-layer optimization, managing parallelism and communication, mapping and scheduling computations, reducing control complexity, machine-specific optimizations, learning error patterns, and many more. I will also describe the resources and infrastructure available for starting research in quantum computing and for tackling these challenges.
Biography: Fred Chong is the Seymour Goodman Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. He is also Lead Principal Investigator for the EPiQC Project (Enabling Practical-scale Quantum Computing), an NSF Expedition in Computing. Chong received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1996 and was a faculty member and Chancellor fellow at UC Davis from 1997-2005. He was also a Professor of Computer Science, Director of Computer Engineering, and Director of the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing at UCSB from 2005-2015. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and 6 best paper awards. His research interests include emerging technologies for computing, quantum computing, multicore and embedded architectures, computer security, and sustainable computing.
Host: Xuehai Qian, xuehai.qian@usc.edu
More Information: 19.02.15 Fred Chong_CENG Seminar-.pdf
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
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Munushian Seminar - Paul McEuen, Friday, February 15th at 11am in EEB 132
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Paul McEuen, Cornell University
Talk Title: Cell-sized Sensors and Robots
Abstract: Fifty years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman claimed that a revolution was underway where information, computers, and machines would be shrunk to incredibly small dimensions. History has proven him mostly right: integrated circuits and Moore's law have given us cell phones, the internet, and artificial intelligence. But the third leg of Feynman's dream, the miniaturization of machines, is only just getting underway. Can we create functional, intelligent machines at the scale that biology does? The size of, say, a single-celled organism like a Paramecium? And if so, how? In this talk, I'll take a look at some of the approaches being explored, focusing on a Cornell effort to combine microelectronics, optics, paper arts, and 2D materials to create a new generation of cell-sized smart, active sensors and microbots that are powered and communicate by light.
Biography: Paul McEuen is the John A. Newman Professor of Physical
Science at Cornell University and Director of the Kavli institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science. His research explores the electronic, optical, and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials; he is currently excited about using these materials to construct functional micron-scale machines. He is also a novelist, and his scientific thriller SPIRAL won the debut novel of the year from the International Thriller Writers Association. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: https://minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian/
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: https://minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian/
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Joe Rohde, Creative Portfolio Executive, Walt Disney Imagineer
Talk Title: Story into Structure
Host: EHP and Dr. Prata
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amanda McCraven
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Gabor C. Temes, Professor, Oregon State University
Talk Title: Noise Filtering and Linearization of Single-Ended Circuits
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Gabor Temes.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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CS Colloquium: Jason Lee (USC, Data Sciences and Operations)On the Foundations of Deep Learning: SGD, Overparametrization, and Generalization
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jason Lee, USC, Data Sciences and Operations
Talk Title: On the Foundations of Deep Learning: SGD, Overparametrization, and Generalization
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: We provide new results on the effectiveness of SGD and overparametrization in deep learning.
a) SGD: We show that SGD converges to stationary points for general nonsmooth , nonconvex functions, and that stochastic subgradients can be efficiently computed via Automatic Differentiation. For smooth functions, we show that gradient descent, coordinate descent, ADMM, and many other algorithms, avoid saddle points and converge to local minimizers. For a large family of problems including matrix completion and shallow ReLU networks, this guarantees that gradient descent converges to a global minimum.
b) Overparametrization: We show that gradient descent finds global minimizers of the training loss of overparametrized deep networks in polynomial time.
c) Generalization:
For general neural networks, we establish a margin-based theory. The minimizer of the cross-entropy loss with weak regularization is a max-margin predictor, and enjoys stronger generalization guarantees as the amount of overparametrization increases.
d) Algorithmic and Implicit Regularization: We analyze the implicit regularization effects of various optimization algorithms on overparametrized networks. In particular we prove that for least squares with mirror descent, the algorithm converges to the closest solution in terms of the bregman divergence. For linearly separable classification problems, we prove that the steepest descent with respect to a norm solves SVM with respect to the same norm. For over-parametrized non-convex problems such as matrix sensing or neural net with quadratic activation, we prove that gradient descent converges to the minimum nuclear norm solution, which allows for both meaningful optimization and generalization guarantees
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Jason Lee is an assistant professor in Data Sciences and Operations at the University of Southern California. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley working with Michael Jordan. Jason received his PhD at Stanford University advised by Trevor Hastie and Jonathan Taylor. His research interests are in statistics, machine learning, and optimization. Lately, he has worked on high dimensional statistical inference, analysis of non-convex optimization algorithms, and theory for deep learning.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Javad Lavaei , Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: TBD
Host: Dr. Meisam Razaviyayn
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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AME Seminar
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kazuhiro Saitou, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Manufacturability-Driven, Multi-Component Topology Optimization (MTO) for Top-Down Design of Structural Assemblies
Abstract: This talk presents a manufacturability-driven, multi-component topology optimization (MTO) framework for simultaneous design and partitioning of structures assembled of multiple components. Constraints on component geometry imposed by chosen manufacturing processes are incorporated in the conventional density-based topology optimization, with additional design variables specifying fractional component membership which enables continuous relaxation of otherwise discrete partitioning problems. The geometric constraints imposed by various manufacturing processes, such as size, perimeter length, undercut, and enclosed cavities, are also relaxed to enable the manufacturability evaluation of gray geometries that occur during the density-based topology optimization. Examples on minimum compliance structural assembly design for sheet metal stamping (MTO-S), die casting (MTO-D), additive manufacturing (MTO-A), and tailored-fiber composite process (MTO-C) show promising advantages over the conventional monolithic topology optimization. In particular, manufacturing constraints previously applied to monolithic topology optimization gain new interpretations when applied to multi-component assemblies, which can unlock richer design space for topology exploration. The talk will conclude with a brief overview of the latest developments on the MTO framework for continuous fiber printing processes and for 4D printing processes.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 @ 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Hopkins, University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: Enabling Engineered Properties via Architected Materials
Abstract: See attachment
More Information: Seminar _Jonathan Hopkins.pdf
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Farshad Lahouti, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Learning from Oracle or Crowd: Budget fidelity trade-offs and query design strategies
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Design of many machine learning systems rely on well-curated datasets. Developing such datasets is an expensive and time-consuming process. Digital crowdsourcing (CS) is a modern approach to infer this from small contributions of a large and potentially non-expert crowd. In this talk, the CS problem, as a human-in-the-loop computation problem, is modeled and analyzed in an information theoretic rate-distortion framework. The purpose is to identify the ultimate fidelity that one can achieve by any form of query from the crowd and any inference algorithm with a given budget. This in turn motivates the design of coded query schemes. Strategies are presented for efficient and reliable query design in presence of a crowd or an oracle. The query rate performance and speed of learning are analyzed and the role of pricing is investigated. Joint work with Victoria Kostina and Babak Hassibi.
Biography: Farshad Lahouti received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 2002. In 2005, he joined the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, where he founded the Center for Wireless Multimedia Communications. Dr Lahouti received the distinguished scientist award from Iran National Academy of Sciences in 2014. He joined the electrical engineering department at Caltech as a visiting faculty in 2013, where he initiated the digital ventures design program. He is also the co-founder and the scientific lead of cntxts Inc inventing the next generation ultra energy efficient IoT technology and its digital AI contexts. His current research interests are coding and information theory, and statistical signal processing with applications to machine learning, wireless networks and biological and neuronal networks. Information on his recent works can be found here: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~lahouti
Host: Salman Avestimehr
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - EEB 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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AI, Biometrics and Computer Vision @ VISTA
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 @ 03:15 PM - 04:15 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Wael AbdAlmageed, USC-ISI
Talk Title: AI, Biometrics and Computer Vision @ VISTA
Abstract: In this talk, I will describe various ongoing research activities at computer vision group at USC Information Sciences Institute that span core machine learning and artificial intelligence, biometrics, image integrity assessment and fake news detection. In terms of core machine learning, I will present a novel representation (i.e. feature) learning framework for neural networks, called unsupervised adversarial invariance, which learns a split representation of data through competitive learning between a classification task and a reconstruction task coupled with information disentanglement, without needing any labeled information about confounding factors or domain knowledge. Second, in biometrics, I will present the design of a novel biometrics sensor suite that provides rich data for presentation attack detection (i.e. anti-spoofing) for face, iris and fingerprint biometrics. I will also present a deep neural network approach for presentation attack detection using limited amounts of data obtained from the new sensor suite. Finally, I will present two new approaches for assessing the integrity of multimedia assets. The first approach is called BusterNet, in which I will describe a novel convolutional neural network architecture for detection and localization of copy-move image forgeries. The second approach uses joint multimodal embedding to assess the integrity of multimedia packages undergoing semantic manipulations. I will conclude my talk with directions and plans for future research.
Biography: Dr. Wael AbdAlmageed is a Research Team Leader and Supervising Computer Scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute (USC ISI). He is the Co-Director of the Center for Video, Image, Speech and Text Analytics (VISTA). He is an expert in computer vision, biometrics and machine learning. His research focus is on developing and applying artificial intelligence techniques to vision, bioinformatics and data analytics problems. His research interests also include mapping machine learning and computer vision algorithms to modern high performance computing platforms. Prior to joining ISI, from 2004 to 2013, Dr. AbdAlmageed was a research scientist with the University of Maryland at College Park, where he led research and development efforts for various DARPA, IARPA and ARL programs, such as VIVID, VIRAT, PerSeas and VACE. He obtained his Ph.D. with Distinction from the University of New Mexico in 2003 where he was also awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student award. He has two patents and over 65 publications in top machine learning, computer vision and high performance computing conferences and journals. Dr. AbdAlmageed is the PI for ISI's effort on IARPA Odin, and DARPA MediFor.
Host: Profs Richard Leahy & Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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CAIS Seminar: Kristina Lerman (USC) - Friendship Paradox and Information Bias in Networks
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Kristina Lerman, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute
Talk Title: Friendship Paradox and Information Bias in Networks
Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: Individuals' decisions, from what product to buy to who to vote for, often depend on what others are doing. People, however, rarely have global information about others, but must estimate it from the local observations they make of their friends. Dr. Lerman discusses the counter-intuitive phenomena by which the structure of social networks significantly distorts the observations people make of their friends. The effects include the "friendship paradox," which states that your friends have more friends than you do, on average, and its many more surprising generalizations. As a result of these paradoxes, a trait that is globally rare may be dramatically over-represented in the local neighborhoods of many people. Friendship paradoxes may lead individuals to systematically overestimate the prevalence of a minority opinion or behavior, and may accelerate the spread of social contagions and adoption of social norms.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Kristina Lerman is a Principal Scientist at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and holds a joint appointment as a Research Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Trained as a physicist, she now applies network analysis and machine learning to problems in computational social science, including crowdsourcing, social network and social media analysis. Her recent work on modeling and understanding cognitive biases in social networks has been covered by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and MIT Tech Review.
Host: Milind Tambe
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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CS Colloquium: Marco Gaboardi (University at Buffalo, SUNY) Differential Privacy: Formal Verification and Applications
Thu, Feb 21, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Marco Gaboardi, University at Buffalo, SUNY
Talk Title: Differential Privacy: Formal Verification and Applications
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: A vast amount of individuals' data is collected, stored and accessed every day. These data are valuable for scientific and medical research, for decision making, etc. However, use or release of these data may be restricted by concerns for the privacy of the individuals contributing them.
Differential Privacy has been conceived to offer ways to answer statistical queries about sensitive data while providing strong provable privacy guarantees ensuring that the presence or absence of a single individual in the data has a negligible statistical effect on the query's result. In this talk I will present some formal verification techniques we developed to help programmers to certify their programs differentially private and to guarantee that their programs provide accurate answers. These techniques combine approaches based on type systems and program logics with ideas for reasoning about differential privacy using composition, sensitivity and probabilistic coupling. This combination permits fine-grained formal analyses of several basic mechanisms that are fundamental for designing practical differential privacy applications. In addition, I will present some of our results showing how to answer a large number of queries on high dimensional datasets preserving privacy, and how to perform differentially private chi-squared hypothesis testing with the same asymptotic guarantees as the traditional tests.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Marco Gaboardi is an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and a visiting scholar at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. Prior to joining Buffalo, he was an assistant professor at the University of Dundee, Scotland. Marco received his PhD from the University of Torino, Italy, and the Institute National Polytechnique de Lorraine, France. He has been a visitor scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard's CRCS center, and a recipient of a EU Marie Curie Fellowship. Marco's research is in programming languages, formal verification, and in differential privacy.
Host: Jyotirmoy Deshmukh
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM
Fri, Feb 22, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mr. Mark Kasprzak, Chief Industrial Engineer, The Boeing Company
Talk Title: Engineering & Advanced Manufacturing
Host: EHP and Dr. Prata
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Amanda McCraven
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Essentials of Composites Manufacturing
Sat, Feb 23, 2019 @ 08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
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.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/chemical-engineering-materials-science/essentials-composites-manufacturing/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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Satellite Propulsion Systems
Sat, Feb 23, 2019 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: The Satellite Propulsion Systems program provides an understanding of the basic principles and figures of merit of Rocket Propulsion. Upon completion of the 4-day program, participants will be able to apply these principles to spacecraft propulsion system and components Analysis-&-Design, Testing, Ground Operations, Flight Operations, and End-of-life (EOL) De-orbit.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/astronautical-engineering/satellite-propulsion-systems/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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Fall 2018 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Mon, Feb 25, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jorge Cortes, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: The role of network structure in controlling complex networks
Abstract: Controllability of complex network systems is an active area of research at the intersection of network science, control theory, and multi-agent coordination, with multiple applications ranging from brain dynamics to the smart grid and cyber-physical systems. The basic question is to understand to what extent the dynamic behavior of the entire network can be shaped by changing the states of some of its subsystems, and decipher the role that network structure plays in achieving this. This talk examines this question in two specific instances: characterizing network controllability when control nodes can be scheduled over a time horizon and hierarchical selective recruitment in brain networks. Regarding controllability, we show how time-varying control schedules can significantly enhance network controllability over fixed ones, especially when applied to large networks. Through the analysis of a novel scale-dependent notion of nodal centrality, we show that optimal time-varying scheduling involves the actuation of the most central nodes at appropriate spatial scales. Regarding hierarchical selective recruitment, we examine network mechanisms for selective inhibition and top-down recruitment of subnetworks under linear-threshold dynamics. Motivated by the study of goal-driven selective attention in neuroscience, we build on the characterization of key network dynamical properties to enable, through either feedforward or feedback control, the targeted inhibition of task-irrelevant subnetworks and the top-down recruitment of task-relevant ones.
Biography: Jorge Cortes is a Professor with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received the Licenciatura degree in mathematics from the Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree in engineering mathematics from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, in 2001. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Twente, The Netherlands, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 2004 to 2007. He is the author of Geometric, Control and Numerical Aspects of Nonholonomic Systems (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2002) and co-author of Distributed Control of Robotic Networks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). He received a NSF CAREER award in 2006 and was the recipient of the 2006 Spanish Society of Applied Mathematics Young Researcher Prize. He has co-authored papers that have won the 2008 IEEE Control Systems Outstanding Paper Award, the 2009 SIAM Review SIGEST selection from the SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, and the 2012 O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award in the Theory category. He is an IEEE Fellow and, at the IEEE Control Systems Society, he has been a Distinguished Lecturer (2010-2014), and is currently its Director of Operations and an elected member (2018-2020) of its Board of Governors. His current research interests include distributed control and optimization, network neuroscience, reasoning and decision making under uncertainty, resource-aware control, and multi-agent coordination in robotic, power, and transportation networks.
Host: Ketan Savla, ksavla@usc.edu
More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Spring/cortes.html
More Information: 19.02.25_Jorge Cortes CSCUSC Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Spring/cortes.html
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CS Colloquium: Rajalakshmi Nandakumar (University of Washington) - Computational Wireless Sensing at Scale
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, University of Washington
Talk Title: Computational Wireless Sensing at Scale
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Computational wireless sensing is an exciting field of research where we use wireless signals from everyday computing devices to enable sensing. The key challenge is to enable new sensing capabilities that can be deployed at scale and have an impact in the real world.
In this talk, I will focus on the two unique approaches that I pursued to enable sensing at scale. The first is to transform existing smart devices such as smartphones into active sonar systems to enable mobile health and user interaction applications. In particular, I will talk about contactless sensing of physiological signals like breathing using off-the-shelf smartphones that can be used to detect potentially life-threatening conditions such as opioid overdoses as well as sleep apnea. The second approach is to design new low power wireless technologies that can enable IoT sensing on everyday objects on a large scale by addressing power and size constraints. Here, I will talk about our technology that achieves 3D localization and tracking of sub-centimeter sized devices that enables applications ranging from user interaction to precision agriculture.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Rajalakshmi Nandakumar is a Ph.D. candidate at the Paul G. Allen School of computer science of University of Washington. Her research focuses on developing wireless sensing technologies that enable novel applications in various domains including mobile health, user interfaces and IoT networks. She developed the first contactless smartphone based sleep apnea diagnosis system that was licensed by ResMed Inc. and now used by millions of users for sleep staging. She was recognized with the Paul Baran Young Scholar award by the Marconi Society in 2018 and also named as the rising star in EECS by MIT. She has first author papers in top medical journals including Science translational medicine as well as computer science venues (CHI, SIGCOMM, SenSys, MobiCom, MobiSys). Her research was awarded multiple accolades and nominations including MobiSys 2015 best paper nominee, CHI 2016 Honorable mention award and SenSys 2018 best paper award.
Host: Ramesh Govindan
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mark P. Van Oyen, Professor, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Opportunities for Healthcare Operations Engineering & How First Come First Served Scheduling May be Replaced
Host: Dr. Sze-chuan Suen
More Information: February 26, 2019.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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MASCLE Machine Learning Seminar: Jacob Abernethy (Georgia Tech) - Building Algorithms by Playing Games
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jacob Abernethy, Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Building Algorithms by Playing Games
Series: Visa Research Machine Learning Seminar Series hosted by USC Machine Learning Center
Abstract: A very popular trick for solving certain types of optimization problems is this: write your objective as the solution of a two-player zero-sum game, endow both players with an appropriate learning algorithm, watch how the opponents compete, and extract an (approximate) solution from the actions/decisions taken by the players throughout the process. This approach is very generic and provides a natural template to produce new and interesting algorithms. I will describe this framework and show how it applies in several scenarios, and describe recent work that draws a connection to the Frank-Wolfe algorithm and Nesterov's Accelerated Gradient Descent.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Jacob Abernethy is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Georgia Tech. He started his faculty career in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. In October 2011 he finished a PhD in the Division of Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, and then spent nearly two years as a Simons postdoctoral fellow at the CIS department at UPenn. Abernethy's primary interest is in Machine Learning, with a particular focus in sequential decision making, online learning, online algorithms and adversarial learning models.
Host: Haipeng Luo
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - - Lyman L. Handy Colloquia
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor R. Ramesh, Department of Physics and Department of Materials Science and Engineering , University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Electric Field Control of Magnetism
Abstract: Complex perovskite oxides exhibit a rich spectrum of functional responses, including magnetism, ferroelectricity, highly correlated electron behavior, superconductivity, etc. The basic materials physics of such materials provide the ideal playground for interdisciplinary scientific exploration with an eye towards real applications. Over the past decade the oxide community has been exploring the science of such materials as crystals and in thin film form by creating epitaxial heterostructures and nanostructures. Among the large number of materials systems, there exists a small set of materials which exhibit multiple order parameters; these are known as multiferroics, particularly, the coexistence of ferroelectricity and some form of ordered magnetism (typically antiferromagnetism). The scientific community has been able to demonstrate electric field control of both antiferromagnetism and ferromagnetism at room temperature. Current work is focused on ultralow energy (1 attoJoule/operation) electric field manipulation of magnetism as the backbone for the next generation of ultralow power electronics. In this lecture, I will describe our progress to date on this exciting possibility. The lecture will conclude with a summary of where the future research is going.
References: 1. S. Manipatruni et al. Nature 565, 35 2019. 2. Heron, J. T. et al. Nature 516, 370 (2014).
Biography: Professor Ramesh graduated from the UC Berkeley in 1987. His pioneering research is in multiferroic oxides and he continues to pursue key scientific problems in complex multifunctional oxide thin films, nanostructures and heterostructures at Berkeley. His group demonstrated several critical steps towards the next generation of ultralow power storage and spintronics devices. He is highly cited (over 65,000 citations, H-factor =110). He has received the APS David Adler Lectureship award and the James McGroddy Prize, the TMS Bardeen Prize and the 2018 IUPAP Magnetism Prize and Neel Medal. In 2014, he was recognized as a Thomson-Reuters Citation Laureate in Physics for his work on multiferroics. From December 2010 to August 2012 he served as the Founding Director of the SunShot Initiative at the Department of Energy, overseeing and coordinating the R&D activities and funding (300M$/year) of the U.S. Solar Program. In 2011, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Wed, Feb 27, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Lutgarde Raskin, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Can engineering controls shape the drinking water microbiome and reduce the risk of opportunistic infections?
Abstract: See Attachment
Host: Dr. Adam Smith
More Information: Raskin Announcement_Feb. 27.pdf
Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
