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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for March 03, 2009
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Preparing for the Qualifying Exam
Tue, Mar 03, 2009
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Viterbi Engineering Writing Program Presents:"Preparing for the Qualifying Exam"Prof. Armand Tanguay, USC Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical EngineeringProf. Henryk Flashner, USC Department of Aerospace and Mechanical EngineeringMost Viterbi School of Engineering doctoral qualifying examinations consist of a defense of the thesis topic. This examination normally focuses on the topic's importance, its relevance to the field and the literature, how the topic advances to the frontier of knowledge, what methods will be used to attack the problem, and anticipated results. Upon passing the qualifying examination, the student advances from the status of PhD aspirant to PhD candidate, and proceed to execute the program of research that will be documented in his or her dissertation.This special joint session of ENGR 502, Writing Skills for Engineering PhD Students, and ENGR 503, Oral Communication Skills for Engineering PhD Students is offered once a year. All pre-qualification Viterbi School doctoral students are invited to attend. Epstein ISE doctoral aspirants are strongly encouraged to attend.March 3, 2009, 3:30 PM, Grace Ford Salvatori (GFS) Room 116
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 116
Audiences: PhD Students
Contact: Georgia Lum
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The Role of Feedback in Communication
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Young-Han Kim,
UC San DiegoAbstract: Many common communication situations are over inherently two-way channels, such as telephone systems, digital subscriber lines (DSL), cellular networks, and the Internet. In fact, even ``point-to-point'' systems, where the end goal is to transfer information in one direction, often give rise to two-way communication scenarios due to the presence of feedback. In such systems, one can receive feedback from the other end of the channel, which can be used to improve the quality of communication. Although feedback is present in many communication systems, and is being used in certain primitive forms as in channel estimation and automatic repeat request (ARQ), the theory behind its use is far from complete.In this talk, we focus on two recent findings in information theory to discuss the role of feedback in communication networks. Our first result characterizes the feedback capacity of nonwhite Gaussian channels, answering a long-standing open problem studied by many researchers, and shows how dramatic performance improvements can be achieved with optimal use of feedback. Our second result proposes an efficient and robust coding method for more realistic systems with noisy feedback. Although this coding method is still at a conceptual level, it brings up a new paradigm of cross-layer design.Based on joint work with Tsachy Weissman and Amos Lapidoth.Biography: Young-Han Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Kim's research primarily focuses on network information theory and the role of feedback in communication networks.
More broadly, he is interested in statistical signal processing and information theory, with applications in communication, control, computation, networking, data compression, and learning.Professor Kim received his B.S. degree with honors in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, in 1996, where he was a recipient of the General Electric Foundation Scholarship. After a three-and-half-year stint as a software architect at Tong Yang Systems, Seoul, Korea, working on several industry projects such as developing the communication infrastructure for then newly opening Incheon International Airport, he resumed his graduate studies at Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering (M.S. degrees in Statistics and in Electrical Engineering) in 2006. Professor Kim is a recipient of the 2008 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, EEB 540, x04667
Location: Frank R. Seaver Science Center (SSC) - 319
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Third-Generation Conversational Interfaces
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Giuseppe RiccardiAbstract: Communicating with machines is becoming pervasive to the point we rely entirely on them to find (vital) information over the web, perform on-line (trans)actions and communicate with people speaking different languages. In the last decade we have seen tremendous research and technology advancement in the speech and text based interfaces. We are now faced with the problem of overcoming their limitations and investigate multimodal input, adaptive interfaces, communicative paradigms and tame task complexity. In this talk we discuss new research towards third-generation conversational interfaces.Bio: Prof. Riccardi received his Laurea degree in Electrical Engineering and Master in Information Technology, in 1991, from the University of Padua and CEFRIEL Research Center, respectively. From 1990-1993 he collaborated with Alcatel-Telettra Research Laboratories (Milan, Italy). In 1995 he received his Phd in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Padua, Italy. From 1993-2005, he worked first at AT&T Bell Laboratories and then AT&T Labs-Research where he worked in the Speech and Language Processing Lab. In 2005 he joined the faculty of Engineering at University of Trento (Italy) and is affiliated with the interdisciplinary Department of Information and Communication Technology and Center for Mind/Brain Sciences. He is the founder and director of the Adaptive Multimodal Information and Interfaces (AMI2) Lab.
Prof. Riccardi's research on stochastic finite state machines for speech and language processing has been applied to a wide range of domains for task automation. He and his colleagues designed the state-of-the-art AT&T spoken language system ranked first in the 1994 DARPA ATIS evaluation. He pioneered the speech and language research in spontaneous speech for the well-known "How May I Help You?" research program which led to breakthrough speech services. His research on learning finite state automata and transducers has lead to the creation of the first large scale finite state chain decoding for machine translation (Anuvaad).
Prof. Riccardi has co-authored more than 80 papers and 25 patents in the field of speech processing, speech recognition, understanding and machine translation. His current research interests are language modeling and acquisition, language understanding, spoken/multimodal dialog, affective interfaces, machine learning and machine translation. Prof. Riccardi has received many national and international awards and more recently the Marie Curie Research Excellence grant by the European Commission and 2009 IEEE SPS Best Paper Award. Host: Professor Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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Preparing for the Qualifying Exam
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Viterbi Engineering Writing Program Presents:"Preparing for the Qualifying Exam"Prof. Armand Tanguay, USC Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical EngineeringProf. Henryk Flashner, USC Department of Aerospace and Mechanical EngineeringMost Viterbi School of Engineering doctoral qualifying examinations consist of a defense of the thesis topic. This examination normally focuses on the topic's importance, its relevance to the field and the literature, how the topic advances to the frontier of knowledge, what methods will be used to attack the problem, and anticipated results. Upon passing the qualifying examination, the student advances from the status of PhD aspirant to PhD candidate, and proceed to execute the program of research that will be documented in his or her dissertation.This special joint session of ENGR 502, Writing Skills for Engineering PhD Students, and ENGR 503, Oral Communication Skills for Engineering PhD Students is offered once a year. All pre-qualification Viterbi School doctoral students are invited to attend. Epstein ISE doctoral aspirants are strongly encouraged to attend.March 3, 2009, 3:30 PM, Room TBA
Location: TBD
Audiences: PhD Students
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Collection, Cataloging, Preservation, Access and Education using Video testimonies of Holocaust and other genocide survivors at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute
Speaker: Sam Gustman, USC Shoah Foundation
Host: Prof. Ellis HorowitzAbstract:
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute was originally a non-profit founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994 called the Shoah Foundation. In 2006, the archives and staff became a part of USC. The technology for collecting, cataloging, indexing, digitally preserving, accessing and educating at the Institute will be discussed. This includes methodology for making over 100,000 hours of video available online and the infrastructure necessary to preserve the testimonies.Biography:
Sam Gustman has been Chief Technology Officer of the Shoah Foundation since 1994 and was responsible for overseeing the 2006 move of the Foundation's archives to USC. As CTO of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, Gustman ensures the archive's accessibility for academic and research communities at USC and around the world. He is responsible for the operation, preservation, and cataloging of the Institute's 105,000 hours of video testimony, the 8 petabyte digital video preservation effort, and 135-terabyte digital library effort, one of the largest public video databases in the world. His office offers technical support for universities and organizations that subscribe to the Institute's Visual History Archive. Gustman has sixteen years of leadership experience in information technology, and is the inventor of 11 patents on digital library technology for the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. He has also been the primary investigator on National Science Foundation research projects with a cumulative funding total of more than $8 million. Gustman has a bachelor of science in engineering, with a focus in computer engineering, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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FYE: How to Transfer Summer School Classes
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Are you planning on taking any summer classes in transfer? If so, come and find out which courses are options for you, where you can take these and how you can get course work pre-approved for transfer.Please send us a quick RSVP to viterbi.studentservices@usc.edu to ensure we have enough materials.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission & Student Affairs
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SHC Speaker Event---Mary Beth Formby, CFO
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Student Health Council PresentsMary Beth Formby, Chief Financial Officer of Lakewood Regional Medical Center Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 6:00 PM, RGL Room 308Mary Beth Formby has an extensive health care financial background, and has held CFO positions for the past ten years. She was awarded the Tenet "Outstanding CFO" twice (2002 and 2003). She has managed financial turn around of Irvine Regional Hospital while completing systems conversions and integration of major managed care plan. While managing a facility being sold, she exceeded financial targets and kept the facility viable before and after the sale. Additionally, she has been selected as CFO for panel presentation at Tenet's National HR Conference in 2001. Please RSVP to the Student Health Council at mhashc@usc.edu by Friday, February 27th to attend this event.
Location: Ralph And Goldy Lewis Hall (RGL) - 308
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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MySpace: 0 - 125 Million Users in 3 years. The Behind the Scenes Story of How They Did It
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Title: "MySpace: 0 - 125 Million Users in 3 years. The Behind the Scenes Story of How They Did It"Speaker: Aber Whitcomb, Chief Technology Officer, MySpaceDescription: Come hear the CTO and co-founder of MySpace, Aber Whitcomb, discuss how MySpace went from 0 to 125 million registered users in just 3 years. He will be focusing on the technology behind scaling a high traffic site like MySpace and what it takes to keep it running 24/7.Abstract: Aber Whitcomb is CTO and a co-founder of MySpace where he is responsible for the engineering and technical operations groups of the world's most successful social networking site. In the 5 years since its founding, Aber has overseen the technologies that have enabled MySpace to grow from 0 to nearly 125 million unique visitors worldwide, and to be ranked the most trafficked site by comScore. Aber is a recognized expert in large scale computing, networking and storage and frequently speaks about these matters. He is also the founding partner for OpenSocial standard with Google. Aber will be co-teaching a class this fall at the Information Technology Program in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering on developing social apps.Location: SGM 123Date and Time: March 3, 2009, 6:00–8:00 PMContact: asoni@usc.eduThis event is open to USC students, staff and faculty
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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MySpace: 0 - 125 Million Users in 3 years. Behind the scenes story of how they did it
Tue, Mar 03, 2009 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Information Technology Program (ITP)
University Calendar
Description:Come hear the CTO and co-founder of MySpace Aber Whitcomb discuss how MySpace went from 0 to 125 million registered users in just 3 years. We will be focusing on the technology behind scaling a high traffic site like MySpace and what it takes to keep it running 24/7.
Speaker: Aber Whitcomb, Chief Technology Officer, MySpaceAber Whitcomb is CTO and a co-founder of MySpace where he is responsible for the engineering and technical operations groups of the world's most successful social networking site. In the 5 years since its founding, Aber has overseen the technologies that have enabled MySpace to grow from 0 to nearly 125 million unique visitors worldwide, and to be ranked the most trafficked site by comScore. Aber is a recognized expert in large scale computing, networking and storage and frequently speaks about these matters. He is also the founding partner for OpenSocial standard with Google. Aber will be co-teaching a class this fall at the Information Technology Program at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering on developing social apps.To RSVP go to: http://itp.usc.edu/myspacectotalkLocation: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Students, Faculty, Staff
Contact: Ashish Soni
