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Events for March 08, 2011
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EE-Systems Controls Faculty Candidate
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 09:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Elisa Franco, Cal-Tech
Talk Title: Design and Synthesis of Molecular Networks
Abstract: How do living organisms process information and implement their responses to external stimuli? Even in the simplest cells, sensing, computation and actuation are structurally embedded in the biochemistry of complex molecular networks, which we often fail to systematically explain. Quoting Richard Feynman, what we cannot create, we do not understand: by building simple molecular networks from the bottom-up, in a controlled environment, we have an opportunity to gain insight into the design principles of their more complicated, naturally occurring counterparts.
In this talk I will describe the design, modeling and synthesis of in vitro molecular circuits using simple building blocks: DNA, RNA and proteins. In particular, I will present my research on two specific challenges: flow regulation and scalability of biochemical networks. Cellular pathways rely heavily on a regulated flow of nucleic acids, enzymes and other metabolites. I will demonstrate how negative feedback can be used to coordinate and match the activity of two synthetic genes, minimizing waste of chemical reagents. The proposed architecture is robust with respect to initial conditions and specific uncertain parameters. Scaling up our perspective to the coordination of a large number of molecular circuits, biochemical oscillators promise to have a role analogous to digital clocks, which can drive millions of transistors. As a starting point, we have used a tunable biosynthetic oscillator to drive conformational changes of a DNA nano-mechanical device called "DNA tweezers". However, due to the imperfect modularity of the system, the operating point of the oscillator is remarkably deteriorated by high concentrations of its "load". This retroactivity effect is well known in engineered systems, and classical examples are given by voltage drops in power grids or pressure losses in pipe networks. This undesired back-action was reduced by engineering an "insulator circuit", the molecular equivalent of an operational amplifier, which improved the modularity and scalability of the system.
Biography: Elisa Franco received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Control Engineering in 2007 from the University of Trieste, Italy. She is currently completing a second Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in Control and Dynamical Systems, working on design and programming of robust molecular networks. Her research interests are in the field of synthetic and systems biology.
Host: Edmond Jonckheere
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Special AME Seminar
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Daniel P. Raymer, President, Conceptual Research Corp.
Talk Title: Design and Analysis of Hybrid Airships
Abstract: Dan Raymer will discuss the design and analysis of hybrid airships. Raymer performed the initial design and analysis of the Ohio Airship "Dynalifter", a hybrid flight vehicle combining hydrostatic lift from helium with aerodynamic lift from wings and a shaped hull. This concept avoids many of the problems of traditional airships since a large fraction of its weight is carried by aerodynamic lift. It lands like a normal aircraft, decelerating on a runway as its weight is transferred from the wings to the tires. It has substantial weight on its tires when sitting on the ground allowing it to withstand a gusty side wind. Compared to a normal aircraft, the dynamic lift airship has reduced drag when flown at low speeds and flies on much less power than a conventional aircraft carrying a similar payload. Raymer will discuss the advantages of such designs, how such design differs from normal aircraft design practice, and factors that influence the likely success of such projects.
Host: Dr. G. Spedding
More Info: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-8-11-raymer.shtmlLocation: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-8-11-raymer.shtml
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GTHB Seminar
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shachar Kariv , University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Who is (More) Rational?
Abstract: Revealed preference theory offers a criterion for decision-making quality: if decisions are high quality then there exists a utility function that the choices maximize. They conduct a large-scale field experiment that enables them to test subjects' choices for consistency with utility maximization and to combine the experimental data with a wide range of individual socio-demographic and economic information for the subjects. There is considerable heterogeneity in subjects' consistency scores: high-income and high-education subjects display greater levels of consistency than low-income and low-education subjects, men are more consistent than women, and young subjects are more consistent than older subjects. They also find that consistency with utility maximization is strongly related to wealth: a standard deviation increase in the consistency score is associated with 15-19 percent more wealth. This result conditions on current income, education, family structure, and is little changed when we add controls for past income, risk tolerance and the results of a standard personality test used by psychologists. [Authors: Syngjoo Choi (Universisty College London), Wieland Muller (Tilburg University) and Dan Silverman (University of Michigan)
Biography: Shachar Kariv was educated at Tel Aviv University and New York University, where he received his Ph.D. in economics in 2003, the same year he joined the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Professor and the Faculty Director of UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory (Xlab), a laboratory for conducting experiment-based investigations of issues of interest to social sciences. He was a visiting member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (2005-6), a visiting professor at the European University Institute (2008), and a visiting fellow at Nuffield College of the University of Oxford (2009).
He is the recipient of the UC Berkeley Division of Social Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award (2008) and the Graduate Economics Association Outstanding Advising Award (2006). He was also awarded NYU College of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award (Golden Dozen) in recognition of excellence in teaching and contributions to undergraduate education (2002) and NYU Dean's Outstanding Teaching Award in the Social Sciences (2001).
For his Ph.D. dissertation at NYU, he received the Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences (2003). He also received a National Science Foundation grant for studying decisions under uncertainty in theory and experiments (2006-8). Recently, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship for Economics (2009-10).
His fields of interest include game theory, decision theory, and experimental and behavioral economics. His research interests include social learning, social networks, social and moral preferences, and risk preferences. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals including, The American Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Theory, and Economic Theory.
(http://gthb.usc.edu/Seminars/)
*Lunch is included
Host: Prof. Yu-Han Chang
Location: Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall (of Philosophy) (MHP) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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Tips for Interviewing- Presented by the CIA
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Do you have an upcoming interview?
Discover tips on how to prepare for your upcoming interview, as well as the proper steps for follow-up
Come hear the information first hand from a CIA recruiter.
Don't miss out on this opportunity!Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: All Viterbi Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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Yarta: A Middleware For Managing Mobile Social Ecosystems
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Animesh Pathak, Ph.D., INRIA, Paris-Rocquencourt
Talk Title: Yarta: A Middleware For Managing Mobile Social Ecosystems
Abstract: With the increased prevalence of advanced mobile devices (the so-called "smart" phones), interest has grown in mobile social ecosystems, where users not only access traditional Web-based social networks using their mobile devices, but are also able to use the context information provided by these devices to further enrich their interactions. In complex mobile social ecosystems of the future the heterogeneity of software platforms on constituent nodes, combined with their intrinsic distributed nature and heterogeneity of representation of data and context raises the need for middleware support for the development of mobile social applications. Owing to the large variety of platforms available for smart phones, as well as the different ways that data and context information is represented, it is natural to think of middleware solutions that the developers of these systems can use while creating their applications.
In this talk, we will present the details of Yarta, a novel middleware designed for mobile social ecosystems (MSE), which takes into account the heterogeneity of both deployment nodes and available data, the intrinsic decentralized nature of mobile social applications, as well as users' privacy concerns. The Yarta core data model is based on RDF, and can be extended for specific social applications. We also discuss the results of performance evaluation of the core Yarta operations on smart phones and laptops, as well as the steps needed for developing new applications using it.
Biography: Animesh Pathak is currently a researcher ("Chargé de Recherche") with the ARLES project-team at INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California, USA in 2008; and prior to that, the B.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, India where he graduated at the head of his class. His current research interests include high-level programming abstractions for sensor networks and emerging trends in mobile social networking.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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Scaling of Fracture in Quasibrittle Structures
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Qiang Yu, Northwestern University
Talk Title: Scaling of Fracture in Quasibrittle Structures
Abstract: Quasibrittle Materials, which include concrete, fiber composites, tough ceramics, bone and many other engineering materials, are widely used in the fields of civil engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering and bio-engineering. A salient feature of quasibrittle material is that its constituents are brittle and, due to heterogeneity, its fracture process zone is not negligible compared with the structure size. The consequence is that the structure strength (nominal stress at failure) is size dependent. Statistical studies showed that if size effect is ignored in concrete design, the failure probability may increase by orders of magnitude, e.g., from 10-6 to 10-3. Therefore, the proper scaling of quasibrittle structure strength is of great importance for structural safety and reliability.
In this study, the scaling of fracture in shear of RC beams, at reentrant corners, and in metal-composite hybrid joints is investigated theoretically, experimentally, and numerically. Dimensional analysis and asymptotic matching are exploited to identify the small- and large-size behaviors and the transition between these asymptotic trends. In contrast to notches and pre-existing cracks, the real part of the stress singularity exponent for the tip of a reentrant corner or bi-material corner is not -1/2, as required for finiteness of the energy flux into the crack. Therefore, one must take into account the fact that a cohesive crack must emanate from the corner and, for a large enough structure, must be embedded in a more remote singular stress field of the corner. The crack tip field, corner tip field and boundary influenced field are matched energetically through the strength of the singularities. By connecting the energy release and cohesive cracking of the embedded crack with the singular stress field of the corner, a general size effect law can be derived via asymptotic matching. The derived size effect laws for shear of reinforced concrete beams, for reentrant corners and for hybrid joints are validated by experiments and numerical simulations.
Host: Sonny Astani Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Erin Sigman
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Engineering Resume Workshop- Presented by Space X
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 06:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Focused on jobs and internships in Engineering.
All engineering disciplines are welcome.
Presentation:
6:00 pm â 6:45 pm
Individual Resumes (Continuing on Presentation):
6:45 pm â 10:00 pm
First will be a 45 min. presentation on what companies are looking for in interns and new undergrads. Following the presentation we will work on the resumes of students attending, as a demonstration of how to apply principles from the presentation.
Registration for individual sessions: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Av8rls_cqomvdElUaERaY0U1TWtUZUxjNGdaWTZMR1E&hl=en&authkey=CKCfgn4
What to Bring:
Bring an electronic copy of your resume (paper copy recommended for notes).
Workshop hosted by Bryan Gardner:
Propulsion Manager, Spacecraft Manufacturing at SpaceX
Author of Hired Minds: A Career Guide for Engineering Students and Graduates
MIT - MBA & MS Astronautics â08
BYU - Mechanical Engineering â03
The presentation and sample resumes are available at http://www.bryangardner.com/Resume/ResExamples.html
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
