USC - Viterbi School of Engineering

Feb
01

BME 533 Seminar
Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Zhongping Chen, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Beckman Laser Institute, University of California-IrvineSeminar Title: Multimodality in vivo endoscopic and intravascular imaging
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Graduate//Department Only

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Feb
01

Design and Optimization of Total System Power Constrained Communication Systems
Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Dr. Amir Amirkhany Abstract:
The demand for ever higher performance at lower power is motivating system designers to re-think their design strategies not just in terms of performance, but in terms of joint power-performance efficiency. In this new design paradigm, the performance of a communication system is mainly limited by the "total system power" constraint rather than just the "transmit power". Therefore, the choice of the optimum data communication algorithm is a strong function of circuit level power-performance trade-offs. Techniques from signal processing can be further applied to devise analysis and characterization techniques that complement system and circuit design. This talk draws examples of the different steps of this type of system level optimization approach from an effort to devise a multi-tone technique, called Analog Multi-Tone (AMT), for high-speed electrical links. Multi Gb/s chip-to-chip links find applications in the data interfaces between microprocessors, memories, peripherals, and network processing components in high performance systems. The talk starts with an overview of AMT signaling and how algorithm design is tailored to the characteristics of high-speed links. We continue by briefly reviewing the development of a mathematical analysis of this system including a convex framework, and closed-form jitter modeling. We then show how Least-Squares based techniques can be applied to define relevant metrics for the characterization a 24-Gb/s prototype AMT transmitter and enable digital compensation of time-variant non-idealities in the 4-way interleaved system. The talk will conclude with a review of other applications and systems that can benefit from this system-level optimization approach. Biography:
Amir Amirkhany received the Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in 2007, the M.Sc. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2002, and the B.Sc. degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1999, all in Electrical Engineering. He is currently a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Rambus Inc., Los Altos, CA, designing next generation high-speed memory interfaces for graphics applications. Prior to Stanford, he was with Sequoia Communications, working on the ASIC design of WCDMA systems. His main research interests include the design and implementation of communication systems, circuit design, and application of communication and signal processing techniques to the design of low power circuits.
Dr. Amirkhany was a recipient of a Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Global Communications Conference in 2006 for his work on the design and analysis of an analog multi-tone system for chip-to-chip interconnects. He is the inventor or a co-inventor on more than 10 U.S. and international patent applications in the area of high-speed electrical link.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
03

PLASMONICS: FROM ARTIFICIAL MOLECULES TO REAL APPLICATIONS
Wed, Feb 03, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Munushian Visiting Seminar Series
Presents Dr. Naomi J. Halas, Stanley C. Moore Professor at Rice University Abstract:
In recent years we have shown that certain metallic nanoparticles possess collective electronic resonances- known as plasmon resonances- that depend very sensitively on the shape of the nanostructure. This interesting observation has led to a fundamentally new paradigm- "Plasmon Hybridization"- where the collective electronic resonances in a metallic nanostructure can be understood to be a direct classical analog of the single electron wave functions of simple atoms and molecules. The Plasmon hybridization picture explains the tunability of nanoshells, a dielectric core, metallic shell nanoparticle which is the simplest nanostructure with tunable plasmon resonances. More importantly, it provides a nanoscale "design rule" for understanding the plasmon resonances in an entirely new family of plasmonic nanostructures, and for the coupling of plasmonic nanostructures to meso- and macroscopic structures such as nanowires, thin metallic films, or other structures. Controlling the resonant optical properties of nanostructures allows one to control the local field at the nanostructure surface, so these structures can be thought of as precision optical components, although they are far smaller than a wavelength of light. We can exploit these new optical components in a variety of applications, ranging from dramatic enhancement of weakly emitting fluorescent media to label-free chemical detection. In addition, by tuning plasmon resonances into the near infrared region of the spectrum, the physiological "water window" can be accessed, where blood is essentially transparent and light penetrates maximally through human tissue. We have developed a suite of applications for plasmonic nanoparticles in biomedicine, including photothermal cancer therapy, currently in clinical trials. Biography:
Naomi Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, where she also holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Bioengineering. She joined Rice following a postdoctoral fellowship at AT&T Bell Laboratories. She is author of more than 180 refereed publications, has more than ten issued patents, and has presented more than 300 invited talks. She is best known scientifically as the inventor of nanoshells, nanoparticles with tunable optical resonances that span the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. Halas has studied their properties and pursued applications of nanoshells in biomedicine and chemical sensing. She is co-founder of Nanospectra Biosciences, Inc., a company currently commercializing a photothermal cancer therapy based on nanoshells. She is founder and Director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) at Rice, which supports collaborations and interactions among researchers at Rice and other institutions nationally and internationally in the emerging field of Plasmon-based optics and applications. She is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of five professional societies: the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and an Associate Editor of Nano Letters.

Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - co Neurosciences Building, HNB 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
03

Utilizing the Ignition Quality Tester (IQT) to determine the impact of fuel physicochemical propert
Wed, Feb 03, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Greg Bogin,Assistant Research Professor,Department of Chemical Engineering,Colorado School of Mines,Golden, COABSTRACT:The goal of increased combustion efficiency with reduced emissions has sparked increased interest in new technologies for advanced combustion engines such as Low Temperature Combustion (LTC). LTC involves the combustion of thoroughly premixed fuel and air, utilizing high compression ratios and lean equivalence ratios which produce relatively long ignition delay times (compared to typical diesel engines). LTC utilization produces two desirable characteristics: i) high engine efficiency due to high compression ratio and unthrottling, and ii) low NOx and PM emissions due to minimization of traditional high-temperature flame fronts and locally fuel-rich zones. LTC engines, however, present significant challenges as traditional engine control strategies (ignition coil control for Spark Ignition or start-of-injection timing for Compression Ignition) are not employed. Fuel mixture autoignition kinetics dictate ignition timing, resulting in significant control system decoupling. Attaining LTC using petroleum-based fuels (and eventually biofuels) is achievable through the optimal coupling of the fuel injection process with in-cylinder fluid mechanics, and an improved understanding of kinetic pathways to auto-ignition. This requires a concerted approach of experiments and numerical modeling to quantify the effects of fuel chemistry and physical properties on combustion timing, combustion efficiency, and emissions.
A comprehensive understanding of fuel effects on combustion efficiency and emissions is essential for predictive models used to design advanced combustion engines utilizing the LTC regime. It is also essential as non-petroleum based fuels, which can vary widely in fuel chemistry, are adopted. Accomplishing this task requires a research device capable of studying realistic fuels (e.g. low volatility) which are difficult to study using traditional research apparatus such as shock tubes and rapid compression machines. The Ignition Quality Tester (IQT™) is a constant volume, spray combustion device designed solely to measure ignition delay, from which a Derived Cetane Number (DCN) is calculated using ASTM method D6890-09. The experimental capabilities of the IQT have been expanded to allow investigation of fuel effects on combustion timing and emissions. In parallel, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed using KIVA-3V and linked with CHEMKIN to provide the first significant insights into the coupling of fuel spray physics and chemical kinetics for the IQT. The coupling of experiments and modeling enables fundamental research on the physical and chemical fuel effects on combustion, with the benefit of maintaining the link to the ASTM method for DCN. The CFD model accurately and efficiently reproduces ignition behavior of n-heptane; predicting that the combustion event is governed by autoignition and that dispersed ignition events occur throughout the combustion chamber. 2-methyl-hexane (an isomer of n-heptane having similar physical properties) produces longer ignition delay (ID) times compared to n-heptane, in agreement with rapid compression machines studies. The longer ID of 2-methyl-hexane verifies that chemical kinetics dominate over the physical effects of the fuels. The longer ID also results in higher NOx emissions. Thus, the IQT can bridge the gap between fundamental fuel research and actual internal combustion engine research.

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy
Feb
04

Seismic Performance of Concrete Bridges with Advanced Materials
Thu, Feb 04, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Dr. M. "Saiid" Saiidi, Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universtiy of Nevada, Reno, NevadaAbstract:
Advanced materials such as shape memory alloys (SMAs) and fiber-reinforced polymers offer particular characteristics that could substantially improve the performance of civil infrastructure components and systems. A study on the performance of reinforced concrete members utilizing superelastic SMA bars in lieu of steel reinforcement has been in progress at the University of Nevada, Reno in the past nine years. Simple beam-column systems and a 110ft. long, 4-span bridge model made using SMA-reinforcement were tested under slow cyclic load and shake table test to simulate earthquakes. The bridge superstructure was supported on three, two-column piers and each column utilized a different advanced material/detail at its most critical column plastic hinges. The study is part of a extensive study funded by the National Science Foundation, Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Research. The innovative details included shape memory alloys, fibrous concrete, built-in elastomeric pads, and post-tensioning. They were intended to improve post-earthquake serviceability of bridges. The presentation will discuss the evolution of research leading to the 4-span bridge model test and summarize the highlights of the bridge model performance, analytical studies, and the relative performance of different details.
Dr. M. "Saiid" Saiidi (P.E., Fellow ACI, ASCE) is Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. His major research areas are earthquake engineering of bridges and buildings, experimental studies of bridges and components, analysis and design of reinforced concrete structures, and innovative materials in earthquake resistant structures.Dr. Saiidi has served on various important positions such as department Chair, Director of UNR Office of Undergraduate Research, founding chair of ACI Committee 341. He has more than 400 publications to his credit, and has received many awards including the UNR Foundation Professorship Award in 1997, University of Illinois Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003, Regent's 2003 Outstanding Researcher Award, and the Lemelson Innovation Award in 2004.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes
Feb
05

Science Diplomacy and the Prevention of Conflict
Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 04:30 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Scientists and engineers including Viterbi School Dean Yannis C. Yortsos will join diplomats and policy experts to discuss the role of their profession in international relations -- past, present and future.The conference will feature presentations on a wide range of such interactions, according to Yortsos, who will chair a panel on "Science, Development, and Security."The United States Institute of Peace and its Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding is co-sponsoring the conference.Schedule is at http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/events/events_detail/8763/The conference is open to the public, but seating is limited. RSVP to cpdevent@usc.edu.
Location: Davidson Conference Center; Board Room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Eric Mankin
Feb
05

An I-MMSE Perspective to the Capacity of the MIMO Gaussian Wiretap Channel
Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

SPEAKER: Shlomo Shamai,
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Technion - Israel Institute of TechnologyABSTRACT: The fundamental relationship between information theory and estimation theory in the Gaussian channel, is used for an alternative derivation of the secrecy capacity of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian wiretap channel, under a power-covariance constraint.This approach yields closed form expressions in contrast to non-convex optimization based formulas provided by the standard different approaches (Khisti-Wornell, Oggier-Hassibi, Liu-Shamai). Furthermore, the input covariance matrix required in order to attain the capacity is specified, and the current technique provides also some insight into the concept of enhancement, and alternative expressions applied to this problem by Liu-Shamai. An alternative expression for the secrecy capacity of the MIMO Gaussian wiretap channel by Liu-Liu-Poor-Shamai is also examined via the information-estimation perspective. A short outlook will conclude the talk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The talk is based on a joint work with R. Bustin, Technion, R. Liu and V. Poor, Princeton University.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BIOGRAPHY: Shlomo Shamai (Shitz) (S'80–M'82–SM'89–F'94) received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, in 1975, 1981 and 1986 respectively. During 1975-1985 he was with the Communications Research Labs in the capacity of a Senior Research Engineer. Since 1986 he is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, where he is now the William Fondiller Professor of Telecommunications. His research interests encompass a wide spectrum of topics in information theory and statistical communications. He is especially interested in theoretical limits in communication with practical constraints, multi-user information theory and spread spectrum systems, multiple-input-multiple-output communications systems, information theoretic models for wireless networks and systems, information theoretic aspects of magnetic recording, channel coding, combined modulation and coding, turbo codes and LDPC, in channel, source, and combined source-channel applications, iterative detection and decoding algorithms, coherent and noncoherent detection and information theoretic aspects of digital communication in optical channels. Dr. Shamai (Shitz) is a member of the Union Radio Scientifique Internationale (URSI). He is the recipient of the 1999 van der Pol Gold Medal of URSI, and a co-recipient of the 2000 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award, the 2003, and the 2004 Joint IT/COM Societies Paper Award, and the 2007 Information Theory Society Paper Award. He is also the recipient of the 1985 Alon Grant for distinguished young scientists and the 2000 Technion Henry Taub Prize for Excellence in Research. He has served as Associate Editor for the Shannon Theory of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and also serves on the Board of Governors of the Information Theory Society.HOST: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
Feb
05

W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Sustainable Construction - A LEED Platinum Building
Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Mr. Joseph Marfi, Director of Sustainable Design & Construction for Turner Construction Company, will present "Sustainable Construction - A LEED Platinum Building Case Study" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad

Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs
Feb
05

Causal Video Coding Theory: Information Theoretic Basis for Future High Performance Real Time Video
Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: En-hui Yang,
University of WaterlooAbstract: Video coding standards have evolved from H.120 to H.261, H.262, H.263, and H.264 in the H.26x series and from MPEG-1 to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and MPEG-4 Part 10 in the MPEG series. The newest video coding standard, H.264 (also called MPEG-4 Part 10), offers more than 40% rate reduction over H.263 while achieving the same visual quality. With the huge success of H.264, the video coding community is now working towards issuing a call for proposal to develop a new video coding standard which will probably be called H.265 with compression performance at least 40% better than H.264.In this talk, we will look further beyond H.265 and introduce a new video coding paradigm called causal video coding. (All existing video coding standards are based on a paradigm called predictive video coding, and H.265 will likely be the same.) We will examine the compression performance of causal video coding from an information theoretic point of view and present a surprising result---for video sequences other than sequences satisfying a Markov property, the more video frames need to be encoded for transmission in causal video coding, the less amount of data after encoding has to be actually sent! We will also demonstrate that causal video coding can indeed provide better compression performance than predictive video coding. Biography: After spending around three (3) years at the University of Southern California (working with Professor Zhen Zhang and others), En-hui Yang joined the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in June 1997, where he is now a Professor and Canada Research Chair. He is a co-founder of SlipStream Data Inc. (now a subsidiary of Research In Motion). He currently also serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (IT) and is sitting on the Awards Committee for IT. Dr. Yang is a recipient of several research awards and a Fellow of IEEE, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Canada (The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada). By luck, his research has had a (positive or negative) impact on the daily life of tens of millions people worldwide.Host: Zhen Zhang, zhzhang@usc.edu, EEB 508

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
Feb
05

Harnessing optical forces on a silicon chip nanomechanics meets nanophotonics
Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Dr.Mo Li
Department of Electrical Engineering, Yale UniversityAbstract:
The force exerted by photons is of fundamental importance in light-matter interactions. For example, optical tweezers have been widely used to manipulate atoms and microscale dielectric particles. This optical force was theoretically expected to be greatly enhanced in nanophotonic devices in which light intensity is highly concentrated. Recently, we reported the direct detection and exploitation of transverse gradient optical force in an integrated silicon photonic circuit. We showed that an NEMS resonator embedded in a silicon waveguide can be actuated efficiently by the optical force. We further experimentally proved theoretical predictions that this optical force is bipolar – its direction can be tuned to attractive or repulsive by changing the relative optical phase of coupled lightwaves. Subsequently, we have exploited optical forces in a variety of optomechanical structures, including photonic crystal and micro-disk optical resonators. Harnessing the optical force on a silicon chip will enable new nanophotonic and nanomechanical device functions, such as all-optical switching, tunable nanophotonic, radio-frequency photonics and large-scale integration of NEMS.Biography:
Mo Li currently is a postdoctoral associate in Department of Electrical Engineering at Yale University. He received Ph.D. (2007) in Applied Physics from Caltech, M.S. (2003) in Physics from UC San Diego, and B.S. (2001) in Physics from Univ. of Science and Technology of China (USTC). His primary research interests are nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS), nanophotonics, nano-optomechanical systems (NOMS) and integrated quantum photonics.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
06

Liquid Rocket Engines for Spacecraft Pressure-Fed Propulsion Systems
Sat, Feb 06, 2010
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

This three-day course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts and technologies of modern satellite liquid propellant rocket engines. The course will concentrate on scientific and engineering foundations of pressure- fed, monopropellant, bipropellant, dual mode, and secondary combustion augmented thrusters for satellite orbit-raising and station-keeping operations.
Location: USC campus or online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Feb
08

Network Science: Power Grids, Wireless Communication, and Epidemics
Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Edmund Yeh,
Yale UniversityAbstract: Over the past decade, there has been a concerted effort to develop a network science for studying physical, biological, social, and information networks within a common framework. Of particular interest is the understanding of connectivity, robustness, and information/epidemic dynamics in large-scale networks with spatial location and mobility. In this talk, we discuss a number of recent results from the application of network science ideas to electrical power grids, wireless communication networks, and the spread of epidemics.The security and stability of the electrical power grid is one of the major challenges facing society today. In power networks carrying load, the failure of one network node can result in redistribution of the load onto other nearby nodes. If these nodes fail due to excessive load, then this process can result in a cascading failure causing widespread power outage. Using the theory of percolation, we characterize the resilience of the power network in terms of whether correlated node failures lead to a large connected component of failed nodes or not. With this approach, we obtain analytic conditions on the existence or non-existence of correlated and cascading failures in power grids.Next, we study connectivity and information dissemination in large-scale wireless networks modelled by random geometric graphs with dynamic on-off links. Using a percolation-based perspective, we show that the delay for information dissemination exhibits two behavioral regimes, corresponding to a phase transition of the underlying network connectivity. When the dynamic network is in the subcritical phase, ignoring propagation delays, the dissemination delay scales linearly with the Euclidean distance between the sender and the receiver. When the dynamic network is in the supercritical phase, the delay scales sublinearly with the distance.Mobility is an essential aspect of information and epidemic networks. In these settings, the details of the mobility process is often not as essential as the pattern of network connectivity that the mobility induces. We develop a new framework for studying mobility which maps a network of mobile nodes to a network of stationary nodes with dynamic links. Using this framework, we characterize the rate of epidemic spread (e.g. H1N1) in mobile geometric networks (e.g. human contact networks).Joint work with Zhenning Kong.Biography: Edmund Yeh received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with Distinction from Stanford University in 1994, his M.Phil in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1995, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2001. Since 2001, he has been on the faculty at Yale University, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering (with joint appointments in Computer Science and Statistics).Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
Feb
08

BME 533 Seminar
Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Vasilis Marmarelis, Ph.D., Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering, USC: "Computational Modeling of Biomedical Systems and Advanced Processing of Biomedical Signals"
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Graduate//Department Only

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Feb
08

Cognitive Radio Channels: Capacity for Certain Discrete Memoryless Channels and Capacity to Within 1
Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Stefano Rini,
Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Illinois at ChicagoAbstract: The capacity region of the interference channel in which one transmitter non-causally knows the message of the other, termed the cognitive channel, has remained open since its inception in 2005. A number of subtly differing achievable rate regions and outer bounds have been derived, some of which are tight under specific conditions. In this talk we present a new unified inner bound for the discrete memoryless cognitive interference channel that encompasses all known achievable rate regions. We also present an outer bound that unifies some known outer bounds. We show that our outer bound is tight for the deterministic linear high SNR approximation of the Gaussian cognitive channel, and that it gives capacity to within 1.8 bits for the Gaussian channel.Biography: Stefano Rini received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Politecnico di Milano, Como (Italy) in 2005. He is currently a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a MA student in Statistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, IL USA . He is an active researcher in multi-user information theory and cognitive networks.Host: Gerhard Kramer, gkramer@usc.edu, EEB 536, x07229

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
Feb
10

How Are Images Obtained from Measurements in X-ray-based Tomographic Imaging
Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Guest Speaker: Professor Xiaochuan Pan,
Ph.D., Department of Radiology
The University of Chicago Abstract: In the presentation, I will discuss some of recently developed analytic and optimization-based algorithms for image reconstruction in diagnostic CT, emerging cone-beam CT, and their implications for CT applications. A focus of the discussion will be on contrast of differences between analytic and optimization-based algorithms, on clarification of a number of issues, such as the relationship between the Nyquist sampling theorem and compressive sensing approach, and on elucidation of the impact of algorithm design and implementation on image quality. I will also devote some time to demonstrate that the utility of some existing metrics for image-quality evaluation can be limited and that the "mathematic exactness" of an algorithm can be an irrelevant metric for a meaningful evaluation of algorithms' performance in practical applications.Hosted by Professor Richard Leahy
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Talyia Veal
Feb
10

InFORMation inNOVAtion...
Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Researches in Design and Computation, Optioneering through Associative Parametric Design,
Building Information Modeling and Platforms for Design Integration and Analytics Speaker: Dr. David J. Gerber, Assistant USC School of Architecture, Consultant for Gehry Technologies, Inc. Abstract: Architectural design by definition is an ill defined problem computationally; it is multi-objective and pluri-potent. The research trajectories presented address the application of technologies and methodologies to architecture, engineering, and construction problems in the building, building systems and urban design arenas. These technologies include associative parametric modeling, building information modeling, simulation and the advent of design analytic platforms. Intrinsic to the research is that of integration and the leveraging of geometrically and semantically rich higher fidelity models and simulations. Collaboration, communication and the need for rapid design iteration and visualized validation is core to the development of what we term optioneering methodologies and technologies. The research looks deeply into practice based problems and the opportunities for innovating solutions for the problems of design efficiency and fit; of complex system performance, organizational and project; and of overall sustainability. We look at the current problems and cutting edge of optioneering platforms and the future research into design computation integrations. While the advent of geometric and semantic models, i.e., Building Information Modeling has brought about a step wise change to the industry's best practices, researches into the problem of early stage design iteration, design model validation and analytics, and into opportunities for integration remain an essential arena for improvement. Bio: Dr. David Jason Gerber is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at USC. He concurrently consults for Gehry Technologies Inc., a leading Building Information Modeling consultancy and technology company where he was a Vice President. Prior to Gehry Technologies Dr. Gerber lead research and development as a Vice President of Innovation for a US startup acquired by an Indian company in 2008 where he developed a platform for synchronous global BIM collaboration. Dr. Gerber has worked as an architect and consultant in the US, Europe and Asia, for the Steinberg Group, Moshe Safdie, Gehry Technologies, and as a project architect for Zaha Hadid. While working for Zaha Hadid Architects, Dr. Gerber worked on a number of the recently built projects including the contemporary art museum in Cincinnati, the Phaeno Science Museum in Wolfsburg Germany, the Hoenheim terminus in Strasbourg and a number of well published un-built projects. He was project architect and project manager for the One North masterplan in Singapore where in conjunction he invented and developed a technology platform for managing design iteration and the invention of an associative parametric urbanism methodology. The platform was a technology to manage and visualize design and engineering cause and effect. Upon delivery of the project which included 5 million square meters of planned gross floor area he pursued his doctoral research at Harvard University. His doctoral research, Parametric Practices: Models for Design Exploration in Architecture, focused on associative parametric design technology and its affect on design, theory, processes, and contemporary practice. Publications of his design work and research have been included in "Young Blood," AD (2001); "Corporate Fields," AA Publications (2005); and in Interactive Cities, Hyx Publications (2006). He published a Harvard University book The Parametric Affect: Computation, Innovation and Models for Design Exploration in Contemporary Architectural Practice (2009). Most recently he authored the feature article for the Journal of Building Information Modeling titled: BIM as a Risk Management Platform Enabling Integrated Practice and Delivery. He has held appointments at MIT's Media Lab as a research fellow, as well as numerous teaching and research fellowships at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and as Harvard University's Frederick Sheldon Fellow. He has been full time faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), a lecturer at the Architectural Association's Design Research Laboratory in London, a lecturer at UCLA and has been a guest speaker and critic at Harvard, MIT Innsbruck University, and the EPFL Switzerland. At SCI-Arc and USC he instructed and instructs courses in the Applied Sciences and studios in design, design computation, AEC technologies, and fabrication, emphasizing associative parametric design strategies and Building Information Modeling as a means of design exploration and realization. He is an invited lecturer at Stanford University's Center for Integrated Facility Engineering and CEE department. At USC Dr. Gerber has taught courses in the CEE department on Building Information Modeling. He has lectured globally on the topics of associative parametric design, design and computation, and speaks to industry associations on the implications of BIM and technology on the AEC industry. Dr. Gerber holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley (1996), a Master of Architecture from the Architectural Association DRL in London (2000) Master of Design Studies (2003) and Doctor of Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2007).

Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes
Feb
10

Tuning the Properties of Materials Through Nanostructure: Processing of Large Sized Nanocomposites f
Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Javier E. Garay Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Mechanical EngineeringMaterials Science and Engineering ProgramUniversity of California, Riverside Improved performance of devices such as high power lasers often hinge on the development of materials with a precise blend of properties. Nanocrystalline materials display significantly different properties and functionalities than their microcrystalline counterparts, yet their direct application in products has been hindered by the difficulty in producing them reliably and efficiently. One reason is that consolidation of nanocrystalline powders usually results in large grain size increase and therefore loss of enhanced nanocrystalline properties. Recently, the versatile material processing technique of current activated pressure assisted densification has proven effective in overcoming the grain growth challenge—it is now possible to efficiently produce materials large enough to be viable nanocrystalline parts. The method draws its effectiveness from large electric current densities that serve to heat the materials and also alter the processing kinetics. After an overview of our processing techniques, I will present results on large-sized, fully dense materials with grain sizes much less that 100 nm. The materials have very different properties than traditional materials including improved visible light transmittance, tailorable heat conductivity, and magnetic coupling and can be used as laser host ceramics, magnetic sensors etc. The results will be discussed in terms of crystal length scale effects and proximity of nanoscale phases.
Location: Seaver Science Library, (SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy
Feb
11

Structure-Property Relations in Polymers for Gas Separations
Thu, Feb 11, 2010 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Lyman Handy Colloquium SeriesPresentsBenny D. FreemanUniversity of Texas at AustinAbstract:This presentation will discuss structural features important in the use of polymers as rate-controlling membranes for gas separations. In particular, materials having desirable combinations of high permeability and high selectivity based upon solubility selectivity (e.g., butane removal from natural gas, CO2 separation from H2 or N2) or diffusivity selectivity (e.g., CO2 removal from natural gas) will be presented. For example, cross-linked poly(ethylene oxide) (XLPEO) polymers, which are flexible, rubbery polymers identified as promising materials to remove polar and acid gases, such as CO2, from mixtures with light gases, such as H2. One member of this family of materials was reported to have a CO2 permeability coefficient of approximately 500 Barrer and a CO2/H2 mixed gas selectivity of 30 at -20C.1 Such materials achieve high selectivity based upon their high solubility selectivity favoring CO2 transport. Prepared by cross-linking low molecular weight poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate with other poly(ethylene oxide) acrylates, XLPEO polymers exhibit good separation properties thanks to ethylene oxide group interaction with CO2 and suppression of crystallinity normally found in high molecular weight, linear poly(ethylene oxide).
Polymers can also be tailored to achieve high selectivity based upon high diffusivity selectivity. In this case, highly rigid, glassy polymers with proper free volume element size and size distribution are desirable. Polyimides with ortho-position functional groups may be solution-processed to form conventional films and membranes. Such materials can undergo thermal rearrangement to form highly rigid benzoxazole or benzithiazole structures having very high permeability coefficients and high selectivity. For example, one member of this family was prepared having a CO2 permeability coefficient of 1610 Barrer and a CO2/CH4 selectivity, under mixed gas conditions, of 42-46, depending on the partial pressure of CO2 in the mixture.2 These thermally rearranged (TR) polymers are insoluble in common solvents, giving them good chemical stability, and highly thermally stable, which are important attributes for membranes that would be used in chemically or thermally aggressive environments.
The overarching message from this presentation is that polymers can be exquisitely tuned to have favourable permeation properties. Materials may be designed to achieve high selectivity by being more soluble to one molecule than another or by having a strong ability to sieve gas molecules based on minute differences in gas molecule size. In both cases, the structure of the polymer may be optimized to permit rapid permeation.
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
Feb
11

CS DLS: Prof. Tuomas Sandholm
Thu, Feb 11, 2010 @ 04:00 PM - 05:50 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk title: Design and Algorithms for Modern Kidney ExchangesSpeaker: Prof. Tuomas Sandholm (Carnegie Mellon University)Host: Prof. Milind TambeAbstract:
In kidney exchanges, patients with kidney disease can obtain compatible donors by swapping their own willing but incompatible donors. The clearing problem involves finding a social welfare maximizing set of non-overlapping short cycles. We proved this NP-hard. It was one of the main obstacles to a national kidney exchange. We presented the first algorithm capable of clearing these exchanges optimally on a nationwide scale. The key was incremental problem formulation because the formulation that gives tight LP bounds is too large to even store. On top of the branch-and-price paradigm we developed techniques that dramatically improve runtime and memory usage. Furthermore, clearing is actually an online problem where patient-donor pairs and altruistic donors appear and expire over time. We developed trajectory-based online stochastic optimization algorithms (that use our optimal offline solver as a subroutine) for this. I will discuss design parameters and tradeoffs. Our best online algorithms outperform the current practice of solving each batch separately. I will share experiences from using our algorithms as the clearing engine of the largest two kidney exchange networks in the US. We also introduced several design enhancements to the exchanges. For one, we used our algorithms to launch the first never-ending altruistic donor chains. I am also helping UNOS design the nationwide kidney exchange, which will use our algorithms; I will discuss current design considerations.The talk covers material from the following papers:* Online Stochastic Optimization in the Large: Application to Kidney
Exchange. IJCAI-09. (With Awasthi, P.)* A Nonsimultaneous, Extended, Altruistic-Donor Chain. New England
Journal of Medicine 360(11), March 2009. (With Rees, M., Kopke, J., Pelletier, R., Segev, D., Rutter, M., Fabrega, A., Rogers, J., Pankewycz, O., Hiller, J., Roth, A., Ünver, U., and Montgomery, R.)* Clearing Algorithms for Barter Exchange Markets: Enabling Nationwide
Kidney Exchanges. EC-07. (With Blum, A. and Abraham, D.)Bio:
Tuomas Sandholm is Professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He has published over 380 papers on electronic commerce; game theory; artificial intelligence; multiagent systems; auctions and exchanges; automated negotiation and contracting; coalition formation; voting; safe exchange; normative models of bounded rationality; resource-bounded reasoning; machine learning; networks; and combinatorial optimization. He has 19 years of experience building optimization-based electronic marketplaces, and has fielded several of his systems. He is also Founder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of CombineNet, Inc., which has commercialized over 800 large-scale generalized combinatorial auctions, with over $50 billion in total spend and over $6 billion in generated savings. He received the Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1996 and 1994. He earned an M.S. (B.S. included) with distinction in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland, in 1991. He is recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Award, the inaugural ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and the Computers and Thought Award. He is Fellow of the ACM and AAAI.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
12

W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Direct Imaging of Extrasolar Planets
Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Prof. Ben Zuckerman of the Physics and Astronomy Department at UCLA will present on "Direct Imaging of Extrasolar Planets" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad

Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs
Feb
12

Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Dr. Qun Jane Gu, UCLATopic: RF/MMIC CMOS Circuits/Systems for Emerging Applications
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hossein Hashemi
Feb
12

RF/MMIC CMOS Circuits/Systems for Emerging Applications
Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Dr. Qun Jane Gu, UCLAAbstract:
Wide employment of emerging applications mandates low cost, high reliability systems, for which CMOS technology holds high potential due to its unprecedented integration capabilities. This talk will cover 3 emerging/projected applications by CMOS. The first one is high throughput, low overhead RF interconnect, which addresses the exponential increasing speed and bandwidth requirements for sophisticated systems such as Network-On-Chip, System-In-Package fueled by deep scaled CMOS technology. However, deep scaled CMOS technology has wide spread process corners and parameter variations, which degrade the circuits/systems yield and increase the cost. The second topic then focuses on System-on-Chip self-healing techniques to build a reliable, high yield CMOS 60GHz transceiver for multi-Gbps short range communications. Thanks to further boosted speed, CMOS begins to find its arena in the "missing THz gap" regime. The last part exemplifies some CMOS THz circuits for high potential THz imaging system for numerous applications: medical diagnosis, military, biology, astronomy etc.Biography:
Qun Jane Gu received the B.S. and M.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 1997 and 2000, the M.S. from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in 2002 and the Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 all in electrical engineering. She received UCLA fellowship in 2003 and Dissertation Year Fellowship in 2007. After graduation, she joined Wionics Realtek research group as a senior design engineer on CMOS 60GHz transceiver for System-on-Chip. Since March 2009, she is a postdoctoral researcher in UCLA. Her research interest spans high efficiency, low power interconnect, mm-wave and sub-mm-wave integrated circuits and SoC design techniques, as well as CMOS THz imaging systems.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
12

IEEE Student Professional Awareness Conference (S-PAC)
Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 05:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Join IEEE at USC and industry representatives for an evening of dining, networking, and story-telling! S-PAC is IEEE's biggest annual networking event with the industry, where students get the opportunity to hear professional speakers from IEEE speak about how to be successful in the industry after graduation and network with industry representatives for fulltime/internship opportunities. This year's S-PAC will be held at the Radisson Hotel near USC on Friday, February 12 from 5PM-9PM and feature keynote speaker Rick Hubbard, who will be telling us "What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Sitting in Your Chair." Participating companies include Boeing, JPL, Northrop Grumman, Qualcomm, Raytheon, and more... S-PAC is a FREE event for Viterbi students. Please sign up online and turn in your refundable $25 deposit checks to RTH 110 by 5 PM on Friday, Feb. 5th. For more information, please visit www-scf.usc.edu/~ieee or email us at ieee@usc.edu.
Location: Radisson Hotel Ballroom (540 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007)
Audiences: USC Engineering Students (All Majors)

Contact: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engin
Feb
15

PRESIDENTS DAY: NO BME 533 SEMINAR
Mon, Feb 15, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Feb
16

Regularisation in Multimodality Optical Tomography
Tue, Feb 16, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Professor Simon Arridge,
Centre for Medical Image Computing,
University College LondonAbstract: Optical Tomography in highly scattering media is non-linear and severely ill-posed. An increasingly widely used approach for image reconstruction is a parameter estimation method based on optimisation of a likelihood function. These kinds of problems always require regularization, which most generally should be interpreted in terms of Bayesian prior term.In this talk I will describe different regularisation techniques incorporating structural and statistical information. An emphasis will be placed on cross-constraints with an auxiliary image representing a multimodality approach.Hosted by Professor Richard Leahy
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Talyia Veal
Feb
16

CS Colloq: Dr. Xi Chen
Tue, Feb 16, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk Title: From Two-Player Games to Markets: On the Computation of Equilibria
Speaker: Xi Chen
Host: Prof. David KempeAbstract:
Recently, there has been tremendous interest in the study of Algorithmic Game Theory. This is a rapidly growing area that lies at the intersection of Computer Science, Game Theory, and Mathematical Economics, mainly due to the presence of selfish agents in highly decentralized systems, the Internet in particular. The computation of Nash equilibria in games and the computation of Market equilibria in exchange markets have received great attention.
Both problems have a long intellectual history. In 1950, Nash showed that every game has an equilibrium. In 1954, Arrow and Debreu showed that under very mild conditions, every market has an equilibrium. While games and Nash equilibria are used to predict the behavior of selfish agents in conflicting situations, the study of markets and market equilibria laid down the foundation of competitive pricing. Other than the fact that both existence proofs heavily rely on fixed point theorems, the two models look very different from each other.
In this talk, we will review some of the results that characterize how difficult it is to compute or to approximate Nash equilibria in two-player games. We will then show how these results also advanced our understanding about market equilibria.
No prior knowledge of Game Theory will be assumed for this talk.Bio:
Dr. Xi Chen received his B.S. degree in Physics from Tsinghua University in 2003 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Professor Andrew Chi-Chih Yao's Institute for Theoretical Computer Science at Tsinghua University in 2007. He then became a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study, hosted by Professor Avi Wigderson. Last year, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, hosted by Professor Sanjeev Arora, and this year he is hosted by Professor Shang-Hua Teng at University of Southern California.The research interests of Dr. Chen lie mainly in Algorithmic
Game Theory and Complexity Theory. He is particularly interested in characterizing the intrinsic difficulties of natural and fundamental problems that arise in the game-theoretic study of Internet and e-commerce. His Ph.D. thesis titled "The Complexity of Two-Player Nash Equilibria" won the Silver prize of the New World Mathematics Award, presented by the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians every three years. He also won the best paper awards of the 47th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science and the 20th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation.

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
17

Environmental Photochemistry of a-Ketocarboxylic Acids
Wed, Feb 17, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Speaker: Marcelo I. Guzman, Ph.D., Origins Postdoctoral Fellow - Environmental Chemistry Group, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard UniversityAbstract: The reductive tricarboxylic acid (rTCA) cycle has been proposed as a candidate mechanism for carbon fixation and energy storage at the time life originated. An intriguing search is for a chemical pathway to start the rTCA cycle from inorganic precursor compounds. In this seminar, the reaction of CO2 with a-ketocarboxylic acids in order to produce metabolites of the rTCA cycle will be presented. The reactions are promoted by irradiated zinc sulfide (200 to 400 nm light) that serves as a model system for colloidal mineral semiconductors present on early Earth. The results describe a plausible production scheme on early Earth for the compounds of the rTCA cycle (i.e., through a series of non-enzymatic cascading reactions starting from CO2).A second focus of the presentation will be on the direct photochemistry of pyruvic acid, a representative a-ketocarboxylic acids present in tropospheric aerosol. Model organic aerosol matter is produced via photoinduced and thermal reactions. The low volatility products have optical and structural properties reminiscent of environmental aerosol samples. The studies aim to understand the daily cycles of aerosol absorption observed in the field, and that may introduce a key feedback in the Earth's radiative balance.

Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209 (On Webex. Call for more information)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes
Feb
17

Turbulence in the Stratified Ocean
Wed, Feb 17, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Sutanu Sarkar Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering DepartmentUniversity of California at San DiegoLa Jolla, CAABSTRACT:Background fluid stratification, often prevalent in the environment, inhibits vertical turbulent motion, allows wave-like motion, and promotes the formation of coherent structures. Quantification of the dynamical pathways that lead to mixing in spite of stable stratification is of critical interest to environmental modeling including local and regional impact of climate change. Our work utilizes high-resolution numerical resolution to understand links between turbulence, internal waves and coherent vortices. We will discuss the following examples from our recent work on turbulent flows in the ocean: a jet with non-uniform stratification as a model for vertical mixing in Equatorial Under Currents, a boundary layer on a sloping bottom as a model for mixing on a continental slope and finally the wake of a self-propelled submersible.
________________________________________

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy
Feb
18

On Feasibility of Interference Alignment in MIMO Interference Networks...
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

and A New Training Protocol for Channel State Estimation in Wireless Relay NetworksSpeaker: Cenk M. Yetis,
Satellite Communications and Remote Sensing
Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul, TurkeyAbstract: In the first part of the talk, we explore the conditions required for interference alignment to be applied in a K-user MIMO interference network. Interference alignment is a recent popular scheme not only due to its ability to allocate 1/2 of the bandwidth for each user simultaneously (conventional schemes, e.g., TDMA and FDMA, can allocate 1/K of the bandwidth) but also due to its linearity (requires a simple design of transmit and receive beamforming vectors).
Cross-layer design with interference alignment by using the results of this work is an interesting future work. In addition, an extension of this work to X networks (every transmitter transmits to every receiver) and flexible X networks (every transmitter does not necessarily transmit to every receiver) is not trivial and more questions rise from cross-layer design aspect. In fact, bandwidth limit per user for flexible X networks is also an interesting future work from information theoretic aspect. Finally, an iterative algorithm for interference alignment in these networks is still an open problem. Approximate talk length is 30 minutes.
In the second part of the talk, we introduce a new training protocol for channel state estimation in wireless relay networks that provides a higher network capacity and a faster transfer of channel state information (CSI) than the existing training protocols.
Our approach enables us to obtain the effective SNR (eSNR) of a MIMO wireless relay network as a function of important parameters including the number of relays, antennas, and channel estimation errors. An interesting future work is the optimization of these and other important parameters for wireless relay networks including the training time, power, and structure in order to maximize the eSNR (thus the capacity). Approximate talk length is 20 minutes.Biography: Cenk M. Yetis received his B.Sc. degree in Electronics Engineering from Isik University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2001. He received his M.Sc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Istanbul Technical Univer-sity (ITU), Istanbul, Turkey in 2004. He expects to receive his Ph.D. degree in Satellite Remote Sensing and Communication from ITU in 2010. He received The Turkish Scientiﬁc and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) scholarship from 2005 to 2009. From 2003 to 2007, he was full-time employed by Avea, one of the top three wireless services providers in Turkey, where he held rotational responsibilities in operation and planning groups. Since 2007, he has been a visiting researcher abroad including Ohio State University and University of California Irvine. His research interests include signal processing, information theory, and communication theory for wireless communications. His detailed CV is available online at http://sites.google.com/site/cenkmyetis/.Host: Gerhard Kramer, gkramer@usc.edu, EEB 536, x07229

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
Feb
18

CS Colloq: Prof. Stella Yu
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk Title: Art and Vision: A Quest for A Few Simple Right Strokes
Speaker: Prof. Stella Yu (Boston College)
Host: Prof. Shang-Hua TengAbstract:
A Chinese manual of painting instructs art students as follows:
"Figures, even though painted without eyes, must seem to look; without ears, must seem to listen... There are things which ten hundred brushstrokes cannot depict but which can be captured by a few simple strokes if they are right. That is truly giving expression to the invisible."While computer vision research has made fruitful progress with the help of massive data and computing power, I am more interested in an alternative approach: studying art techniques and human vision to discover those few simple right strokes that are essential for visual expression.In this light, visual computation on images needs to address 3 key questions: What are these few simple strokes? Why are they the right ones? How to ﬁnd them in an image? I have been pursuing answers to these questions in the computation of brightness, space, and attention with simple features, powerful integration, and active selection. In this talk, I will present my progress on these frontiers as well as new ones explored with an artist in an interdisciplinary course on Art and Vision.Bio:
Stella X. Yu got her Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied robotics at the Robotics Institute and vision science at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. She continued her computer vision research as a postdoc at the Computer Science Department of UC Berkeley. Since she joined the faculty of Boston College, Dr. Yu has been developing an interdisciplinary curriculum and research agenda on Art and Vision, for which she received an NSF CAREER award in 2007. Dr. Yu is currently the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Boston College.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
19

CS Colloq: Dr. Frank McSherry
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk Title: Differential Privacy: Theory and Practice
Speaker: Dr. Frank McSherry, Microsoft Research (SVC)
Host: Prof. David KempeAbstract:
We present an introduction to the recent concept of Differential Privacy, a privacy criterion requiring that a computation not reveal the presence or absence of individual records in an input data set.
After developing the mathematical foundation, we proceed to describe the Privacy Integrated Queries platform, an analysis language and system providing differential privacy guarantees even for users without privacy experience. The platform requires some new mathematics, tasteful language restriction, and careful implementation, but enables a large set of new computations that would otherwise require ad-hoc expert analysis before execution against sensitive data.Bio:
Frank McSherry is a researcher at Microsoft Research's Silicon Valley Campus, where he studies questions related to data analysis and data privacy. His recent interests lie in bringing the theoretical achievements of differential privacy to non-experts, without requiring them to acquire new advanced degrees along the way. Frank received his PhD from the University of Washington, under Anna Karlin, doing research on spectral methods in data analysis.

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
19

Embracing the Power of Digital Logic for Future Mixed-Signal ICs
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Mike ChenAbstract:
Over the years, the main stream CMOS technology has been scaling in favor of digital circuits at an explosive speed. It imposes increasing design constraints for analog circuits, such as lower supply voltages, lower gain, leakage currents, and noise, etc. On the other hand, the future radios will demand higher complexity and tighter circuit specifications. Driven by these trends, a new design philosophy is proposed to redefine analog circuit topologies that involve an architectural rethinking, utilizing almost free digital circuits and faster device speed. In this talk, we will examine such opportunities specifically in the mixed-signal IC area. We will use phase locked loop (PLL) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) as case studies, which are critical components to enable future complex system-on-chip (SOC) and mostly-digital system architectures. In both cases, the performance and cost are substantially improved by adopting the new design philosophy.Biography:
Mike Shuo-Wei Chen received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University in 1998, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and 2006, all in Electrical Engineering. Since 2006, he has been working on mixed-signal and RF circuits for WLAN radios in Atheros communications. His current research interests include analog and mixed-signal ICs, communication system designs, and signal processing techniques for circuits and systems. Dr. Chen achieved an honourable mention in Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad, 1994. He was the recipient of UC Regents' Fellowship at UC Berkeley in 2000 and Analog Devices Outstanding Student Award in 2006.

Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
19

Modeling, Control and Optimization of Integrated Fuel Cell Power Systems
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Jing Sun
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Abstract:
Integrated fuel cell power systems, especially those incorporating energy recuperating devices, are often characterized by
synergetic interactions of heterogeneous subsystems; tight chemical, thermal, mechanical, and electrical couplings; and
complex and challenging control tasks. To maintain high efficiency, these systems often operate on or close to their
admissible boundary. In addition, there are many operational constraints, such as continuous fuel cell reactant supply and
reactor temperature limits, that have to be strictly enforced during transient operations.
In this presentation, we will discuss our recent research and development activities on modeling and control of integrated
solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power systems. We have focused our effort on developing control methodologies and tools that
can assure both highly efficient steady state operations and fast and safe transients. Control-oriented modeling for the
SOFC system will be discussed, in conjunction with the control development results. Dynamic analysis and control design of
a hybrid SOFC and gas turbine power system will be presented. Real-time simulation and optimization efforts will also be
covered.
Bio:
About the speaker: Prof. Jing Sun received her Ph. D degree from University of Southern California in 1989. From 1989-1993, she was an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Wayne State University.
She joined Ford Research Laboratory in 1993, where she worked on advanced powertrain system controls. After spending
almost 10 years in industry, she came back to academia in 2003 and joined the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
Department at the University of Michigan where she is a professor now. She holds 35 US patents and has co-authored (with
Petros Ioannou) a textbook on Robust Adaptive Control. She is an IEEE Fellow and one of the three recipients of the 2003
IEEE Control System Technology Award.
Host: Petros Ioannou
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Shane Goodoff
Feb
19

W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Bluffs Improvement Project (a geotechnical project)
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Mr. Spiros A. Lazaris, Civil Engineer for the City of Santa Monica Public Works, will present "Bluffs Improvement Project (a geotechnical project)" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad

Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs
Feb
19

Predicting and tuning multicellular morphodynamics
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

The USC Center for Applied Molecular Medicine (CAMM) is proud to present Dr. Anand Asthagiri, Division of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Cal-Tech.
Abstract:
The cellular microenvironment controls the behavior of individual cells and their organization into multicellular structures. Uncovering how the microenvironment instructs the dynamical assembly of multicellular structures is a fundamental challenge in biology with profound implications in applications, such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. My lab uses quantitative experimental analysis and systems-level modeling to uncover design principles for engineering multicellular patterns and structures. I will describe the insights emerging from our studies of two model multicellular systems: the nematode C. elegans and human epithelial cell communities.
C. elegans provides a unique test bed for developing systems-level predictive models of multicellular patterning. We have developed a computational framework to construct a "phase diagram" of multicellular phenotypes. This phase diagram represents all the multicellular patterns predicted to occur in response to perturbing the underlying regulatory network. Unexpectedly, the predicted phenotypes are observed experimentally not only in C. elegans, but also exclusively in other species. Thus, the phase diagram offers a framework for tracing systematically how the molecular network has diversified during the evolution of C. elegans and related species.
Predicting the evolutionary trajectories of multicellular phenotypes is of interest not only in model organisms, but also in human cell systems. Misdirected evolution of multicellular phenotypes is the basis of diseases, such as cancer. Thus, we are applying automated single-cell imaging and micropatterning to better understand the assembly, disassembly and growth of human multicellular epithelial structures. Our results reveal how the quantitative interplay between cell-cell contact and global soluble cues regulates epithelial population growth and aggregation dynamics. I will discuss how these findings advance our current understanding of cancer development and provide design strategies for tissue engineering applications.

Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Beeta Benjy
Feb
19

Predicting and tuning multicellular morphodynamics
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

The Center for Applied Molecular Medicine (CAMM) at USC is proud to present Dr. Anand Asthagiri of Cal-Tech, Division of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering.
Abstract:
The cellular microenvironment controls the behavior of individual cells and their organization into multicellular structures. Uncovering how the microenvironment instructs the dynamical assembly of multicellular structures is a fundamental challenge in biology with profound implications in applications, such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. My lab uses quantitative experimental analysis and systems-level modeling to uncover design principles for engineering multicellular patterns and structures. I will describe the insights emerging from our studies of two model multicellular systems: the nematode C. elegans and human epithelial cell communities.
C. elegans provides a unique test bed for developing systems-level predictive models of multicellular patterning. We have developed a computational framework to construct a "phase diagram" of multicellular phenotypes. This phase diagram represents all the multicellular patterns predicted to occur in response to perturbing the underlying regulatory network. Unexpectedly, the predicted phenotypes are observed experimentally not only in C. elegans, but also exclusively in other species. Thus, the phase diagram offers a framework for tracing systematically how the molecular network has diversified during the evolution of C. elegans and related species.
Predicting the evolutionary trajectories of multicellular phenotypes is of interest not only in model organisms, but also in human cell systems. Misdirected evolution of multicellular phenotypes is the basis of diseases, such as cancer. Thus, we are applying automated single-cell imaging and micropatterning to better understand the assembly, disassembly and growth of human multicellular epithelial structures. Our results reveal how the quantitative interplay between cell-cell contact and global soluble cues regulates epithelial population growth and aggregation dynamics. I will discuss how these findings advance our current understanding of cancer development and provide design strategies for tissue engineering applications.
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Beeta Benjy
Feb
22

Nanogenerators for Self-Powered Nanosystems
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 @ 12:45 AM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Nanogenerators for Self-Powered Nanosystems
Dr. Rusen Yang
School of Materials Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GAAbstract
A self-powered nanosystem that harvests its operating energy from the environment is an attractive proposition for sensing, medical science, defense technology, and even personal electronics. Therefore, it is essential to explore innovative nanotechnologies for converting mechanical energy (such as body movement), vibration energy (such as acoustic/ultrasonic wave), and hydraulic energy (such as blood flow) into electric energy that will be used to power nanodevices without using battery. Piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays have been successfully demonstrated to convert nano-scale mechanical energy into electric energy. The operation mechanism of the electric generator relies on the unique coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO as well as the elegant rectifying function of the Schottky barrier formed between the metal electrode and the NW. This mechanism resulted in the DC nanogenerator driven by ultrasonic wave. Recently we achieved a new breakthrough with laterally-packaged single wire generator, which solved the transient contact issue in DC nanogenerator and produced power output from low frequency and irregular mechanical disturbance, such as finger tapping and running hamster. This presentation will introduce the fundamental principle of nanogenerator and its potential applications.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
Feb
22

Nanogenerators for Self-Powered Nanosystems
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 @ 12:45 AM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Nanogenerators for Self-Powered NanosystemsDr. Rusen YangSchool of Materials Science and EngineeringGeorgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GAAbstract A self-powered nanosystem that harvests its operating energy from the environment is an attractive proposition for sensing, medical science, defense technology, and even personal electronics. Therefore, it is essential to explore innovative nanotechnologies for converting mechanical energy (such as body movement), vibration energy (such as acoustic/ultrasonic wave), and hydraulic energy (such as blood flow) into electric energy that will be used to power nanodevices without using battery. Piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays have been successfully demonstrated to convert nano-scale mechanical energy into electric energy. The operation mechanism of the electric generator relies on the unique coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO as well as the elegant rectifying function of the Schottky barrier formed between the metal electrode and the NW. This mechanism resulted in the DC nanogenerator driven by ultrasonic wave. Recently we achieved a new breakthrough with laterally-packaged single wire generator, which solved the transient contact issue in DC nanogenerator and produced power output from low frequency and irregular mechanical disturbance, such as finger tapping and running hamster. This presentation will introduce the fundamental principle of nanogenerator and its potential applications.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
Feb
22

BME 533 Seminar
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Anand Asthagiri, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology: "Integrative morphodynamics: toward predictive engineering of multicellular structures"
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Graduate//Department Only

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Feb
23

CS Colloq: Dr. Shuheng Zhou
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk Title: High dimensional statistical estimation and modelling
Speaker: Dr. Shuheng Zhou
Host: Prof. Craig KnoblockAbstract:
A line of recent work has demonstrated that sparsity is a powerful technique in signal reconstruction and in statistical estimation.
Given n noisy samples with p dimensions, where n Undirected graphs are often used to describe high dimensional distributions.
Under sparsity conditions, the graph can be estimated using $L_1$ penalization methods. However, most methods prior to our work have assumed that the data are independent and identically distributed.
If the distribution---and hence the graph--- evolves over time, the data are not longer identically distributed. In the second part of the talk, I show how to estimate the sequence of graphs for non-identically distributed data and establish some theoretical results.In the last part of this talk, I will make a brief connection between my research on high dimensional statistical estimation and on statistical privacy, where the general goal is to construct a data release mechanism that protects individual privacy while preserving information content.
Parts of this talk are based on joint work with Professors John Lafferty and Larry Wasserman at Carnegie Mellon University.Bio:
Shuheng Zhou received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in August 2006, co-advised by Professors Greg Ganger and Bruce Maggs; Her dissertation work focused on combinatorial optimization problems in network routing. She then continued as a postdoc fellow at CMU, working with Professors John Lafferty and Larry Wasserman on statistical and machine learning algorithms and theory. She has been a postdoc fellow with Seminar for statistics in Department of Mathematics at ETH Z\"urich, since August 2008. She is currently visiting Department of Statistics at UC Berkeley.

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
23

La Estanzuela Meeting
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

This meeting will focus on travel preparations for EWB trip to Honduras in March 2010.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 113
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Engineers Without Borders
Feb
23

Travel Team Meeting with Dean Yates
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

The Honduras travel teams will be meeting with Dean Yates to fill out Viterbi forms and learn about Overseas Health Insurance.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 113
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Engineers Without Borders
Feb
23

Corral de Piedras Meeting
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 07:30 PM - 08:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

This meeting will focus on travel preparations for EWB trip to Honduras in March 2010.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 113
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Engineers Without Borders
Feb
24

The Alfred E. Mann Fellows Colloquium
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 01:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Alfred E Mann Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

HEDCO Neurosciences Building Auditorium (HNB 100)1:30-2:30 Restoring Movement Using Brain-Computer Interfaces: Highly Suitable Command Signals Found in Parietal Cortex Offer New Perspectives for the Field of Neural Prosthetics - Markus Hauschild - Mann Fellow - Biomedical Engineering(2005-2007)2:35-3:10 Computational Methods for Fluorescence Tomography - Joyita Dutta - Mann Innovation Fellow – Electrical Engineering3:15-3:40 Rare-Earth Lasers for Biodetection - Hsiusheng Hsu - Mann Innovation Fellow – Chemical Engineering and Materials Science3:45-4:10 - Hyperspectral Pathology: Advanced Image Acquisition, Analysis and Visualization for a New Quantitative Gold Standard - Anika Joseph - Mann Fellow – Biomedical Engineering4:15-4:40 - Using Ultrasound Signals to Localize a Catheter - Jay Mung - Mann Innovation Fellow – Biomedical Engineering
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Susan Cooper
Feb
24

Ports 101: How the Port Operates and its Relationship to the...
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

... Regional, National and International EconomySpeaker: Dr. Robert G. Kanter, Managing Director of Environmental Affairs and Planning for the Port of Long Beach, California. Abstract:The Port of Long Beach is the second largest Port in North America. Combined with its neighbor, Los Angeles, the San Pedro Bay Port complex is the fifth largest Port complex in the world. The value of commodities passing through the Long Beach Port is in excess of $140 billion. The Port supports over 300 thousand jobs in the greater five County region including Los Angeles. The presentation will cover the governance structure of the Port, land use planning, and operational features, as well as environmental initiatives.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209 ( available on Webex upon request)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes
Feb
24

Graphene and Carbon Nanotube Electronics: Device Physics and Simulation
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Jing Guo, University of FloridaAbstract: In recent years, significant progress has been achieved in graphene and carbon nanotube (CNT) electronics. In a graphene or carbon nanotube, low bias transport can be nearly ballistic. Deposition of high- gate insulators does not degrade the carrier mobility because of an absence of dangling bonds. The conduction and valence bands are symmetric, which is advantageous for complementary applications. The Excellent transport property promises high-speed transistor applications. Carbon-based nanostructures are receiving much attention for possible device applications. We have developed a self-consistent atomistic simulator for graphene and CNT field-effect transistors (FETs) based on the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism, and applied it to understand and explain experiments. The simulator provides an atomistic scale description for quantum transport in the presence of inelastic scattering and electron-photon interaction. We show that CNTFET is capable of delivering a near ballistic DC on-current even under high source-drain bias conditions. The radio frequency (RF) characteristics of CNTFETs are simulated for understanding potential high-speed transistor applications. On graphene electronics, we show that edge chemistry of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) provides promising opportunities to engineer the device properties. Device physics and design options of GNR-based tunneling transistors are also examined by atomistic device simulations. Biography: Jing Guo received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, and subsequently joined University of Florida as an assistant professor in Aug. 2004. His research interests focus on modeling and simulation of nanoscale devices with applications in electronics and optoelectronics, in close collaboration with experimentalists. He has published over sixty peer-reviewed journal papers on prestigious journals including Science, Nature, Phys. Rev. Lett., Nano Lett., Appl. Phys. Lett., Nature Nanotechnology, and IEEE Transactions. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early CAREER Award, and served in the technical program committee of International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) and Device Research Conference (DRC). He is the coauthor of the book, "Nanoscale Transistors: Device Physics, Modeling, and Simulation" published by Springer.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
24

Self-Assembly of Hierarchical Materials for Medicine and Energy
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Samuel Stupp SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LECTURE SERIESWinter Quarter 2010JOINTLY SPONSORED BY USC, UCSD, UCLA AND CALTECHBoard of Trustees Professor of Materials Science, Chemistry, and Medicine and Director, Institute for BioNantechnology in Medicine (IBNAM)Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Department of Medicine and Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine Northwestern University Evanston, Il 60208 One of the grand challenges in materials science is the development of self-assembly pathways to highly functional structures across scales. Based on biological systems, soft matter and hybrid materials are natural targets in this context. Highly designed small molecules, polymers, biomacromolecules, ionic solutions, and nanoparticles are all potential building blocks for the development of these self-assembling functional materials. In addition to materials with useful combinations of physical properties and controllable shapes, it is also interesting to develop structures that have adaptable and self-repair capabilities. In this lecture I will review self-assembly pathways developed in our laboratory for supramolecular materials using designed molecules. One of the pathways to be described generates a large diversity of bioactive one-dimensional nanostructures and networks that can signal cells to create new materials for regenerative medicine. The driving force for self-assembly in these systems includes hydrogen bond formation, hydrophobic collapse of molecular segments in aqueous environments, and both attractive and repulsive electrostatic forces. A second system to be described involves the self-assembly of polymers and small molecules into membranes or cell-like capsules with hierarchical structures that may find biomedical and energy applications. In these systems, self-repair of large defects occurs readily by re-exposure to building blocks and diffusion barriers can form by contact of two liquids in millisecond time scales. Other systems to be described include the formation of oriented structures with minimal mechanical force, and the formation of hierarchical hybrid materials with electronic properties of interest in energy targets.

Location: Seaver Science Library, (SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy
Feb
25

Nano-enabled energy technologies
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:45 AM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Distinguished Lecture SeriesPresentsZ. L. WangGeorgia Institute of TechnologyAbstract:Abstract
Developing novel technologies for wireless nanodevices and nanosystems are of critical importance for sensing, medical science, defense technology and even personal electronics. It is highly desired for wireless devices and even required for nanodevices to be self-powered without using battery. It is essential to explore innovative nanotechnologies for converting mechanical energy, vibration energy, and hydraulic energy into electric energy, aiming at building self-powered nanosystems. We have demonstrated innovative approaches for converting mechanical energy into electric energy by piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays. Based on the piezoelectric potential created by strain in nanowires and in conjunction with the presence of a Schottky barrier at the contact, our research has demonstrated the technological road map from fundamental science, engineering scale-up to technological applications of the nanogenerators. As of today, we have demonstrated â€œself-poweredâ€Â nanosensors that work by harvesting energy from the environment. In addition, three-dimensional solar cells have been fabricated by integrating optical fiber with nanowires for developing â€œhiddenâ€Â, concealed and high efficiency solar cells. This talk will focus on the energy technologies developed using ZnO nanowires as the platform.
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
Feb
25

CS Colloq: Dr. Jingrui He
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Talk Title: Rare Category Analysis
Speaker: Dr. Jingrui He
Host: Prof. Gaurav SukhatmeAbstract:
Imbalanced data sets are prevalent in many real applications. It is often the case that people are only interested in the minority classes. The focus of my thesis is rare category analysis, which refers to the problem of detecting and characterizing the minority classes in an unlabeled, imbalanced data set. In this talk, I will introduce different aspects of rare category analysis, including rare category detection for detecting examples from new minority classes, rare category characterization for identifying examples from known minority classes, co-selection of relevant features and examples from the minority classes, etc. Along with theoretical analysis, I will also present experimental results showing the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.Bio:
Jingrui He is a Ph.D candidate in Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She holds an M.S. degree and a B.S. degree from Tsinghua University, P.R. China. Her research interests include statistical learning for rare category analysis, active learning, multimedia, and spam filtering.

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: CS Front Desk
Feb
26

Merging Application and Circuit Knowledge for Innovative Circuit Design
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by Bita NezamfarAbstract: The continued scaling of CMOS technology has enabled incredible computing devices to be created, but has also pushed these devices to their energy dissipation limits. As a result, creating energy efficient systems has emerged as the dominant challenge for the foreseeable future. To make radical improvements to system efficiency, all degrees of freedom in the design need to be identified and exploited. In particular, for energy-efficient circuit design, this level of optimization is possible by understanding the source and nature of the constraints imposed both by technology and application and joint optimization of circuits and algorithms. This talk provides a few examples of how this merging of application and circuit knowledge makes it possible to improve efficiency. Our first example is building supply noise measurement circuits to measure and characterize high frequency supply noise on the chip. In theory, accurate sampling of high-frequency data requires high bandwidth and high resolution analog to digital converters. However, we will discuss how correct interpretation of system-level constraints enables using very simple and non-linear analog to digital converters to obtain all the required data to accurately characterize supply noise. As the next example we discuss the design of a "field-tunable" field-programmable gate array (FPGA). A state of the art FPGA is fairly optimized and resilient to change due to the large stack of software that is developed and optimized for the circuit-level architecture. We first show how interconnect blocks in the FPGA can change to add one more degree of programmability to the system without changing the interface to the higher-level software. This additional degree of freedom enables the FPGA to be programmed for high performance or low power in the field (post fabrication) based on the application of interest. We propose a new logic, called pseudo-static that can effectively utilize this degree of freedom while also improving FPGA performance. Measured results of a 90nm CMOS test-chip are presented and we conclude the talk by discussing a few other examples of application oriented circuit design.Biography: Bita Nezamfar received the Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees from Stanford University, CA, in 2009 and 2004 respectively, and the B.Sc. degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, all in electrical engineering. From 2003 to 2008, she was a Research Assistant with the VLSI Group, Stanford University, where she was involved with the design of on-chip supply noise measurement circuits, and energy performance tunable circuits. In summer of 2006, she was an intern with Aeluros Inc. where she worked on different blocks of a clock synthesizer chip. She is currently with Atheros Communications designing low-power analog circuits for wireless communications. Her research interests include application oriented circuit design and design and implementation of low power and high speed mixed signal systems.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Hazel Xavier
Feb
26

W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; New Developments in Retinal Prosthetics
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Dr. Brian Mech, Vice President of Business Development at Second Sight Medical Products, Inc., will present on "New Developments in Retinal Prosthetics" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad

Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs

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