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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for March
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Analog Hybrid modeling and robustness analysis on cell cycle regulatory circuitry
Mon, Mar 03, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Xiling ShenStanford UniversityAbstract:Caulobacter is a model system for studying bacterial cell cycle. A regulatory circuitry made of cascading regulatory proteins senses and regulates various cell functions, forming nested feedback control loops. By integrating the continuous regulator models with the discrete cell function models, a scalable hybrid control model was constructed that accurately simulates cell cycle regulation under various conditions for different mutant phenotypes. A novel adaptation of a formal verification tool from asynchronous circuit design further identified potential timing hazards in the regulatory circuitry. Ensuing experiments in-vivo revealed novel robustness mechanisms that were not expressed under normal lab conditions.Biography:
Xiling Shen is a PhD student in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His current research interest focuses on modeling and analyzing biological regulatory networks using engineering concepts and tools.Xiling Shen received his BS and MS degree from the Electrical Engineering Department of Stanford University in 2001. He worked at Barcelona Design Inc., a semiconductor startup for two years, specializing in analog circuit design and optimization, before joining Professor Mark Horowtiz' research group in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford in 2003. In the first two years of his PhD, Xiling Shen collaborated with Professor Joseph Kahn to use adaptive spatial equalization to compensate modal dispersion in multimode fibers. Starting from 2005, Xiling Shen has been collaborating with Professor Harley McAdams, Professor Lucy Shapiro, and Professor David Dill to model and analyze the robustness of the Caulobacter cell cycle regulation.
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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Brett Blackman, Assitant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia
Mon, Mar 03, 2008 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Hemodynamic regulation of vascular cell phenotype in in vitro and in vivo models of atherosclerosis
Audiences: Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloq: Interactive and Intuitive Appearance Design
Mon, Mar 03, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Interactive and Intuitive Appearance DesignSpeaker: Prof. Fabio Pellacini (Dartmouth)ABSTRACT:
The appearance of objects comes from the interaction of scene lighting
and surface materials, whose careful definition is necessary to achieve
the remarkable sophistication of today's synthetic imagery.
Currently, appearance design is one of the remaining roadblocks for a
ubiquitous use of computer-generated imagery, since slow user feedback
and cumbersome user interfaces make the process significantly time
consuming for expert designers, and beyond the reach of novices.In this talk, I will present our recent results in rendering accurate
lighting for complex environments where we achieve interactivity by
developing new approximation algorithms that can take advantage of
inherent properties of lighting and of today's commodity hardware
architectures. These algorithms completely change the workflow of
artists from an offline to a fully interactive process.
I will also show results from algorithms that build on this
interactivity to support intuitive user interfaces for appearance
design that drastically simplify the time required for designing
appearance.BIO:
Fabio Pellacini is an assistant professor in computer science
at Dartmouth College. His research focuses on algorithms for interactive,
high-quality rendering of complex environments and for artist-friendly
material and lighting design to support more effective content creation.
Prior to joining academia, Pellacini worked at Pixar Animation Studios
on lighting algorithms, where he received credits on various movie
productions.
Pellacini received his Laurea degree in physics from the University of Parma
(Italy), and his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University.
Pellacini received an NSF CAREER award and a Dartmouth Junior Faculty
Fellowship for his research contributions.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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CS Colloq: Autonomous Development of Skill Hierarchies
Tue, Mar 04, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Autonomous Development of Skill HierarchiesSpeaker: Ozgur Simsek (UMASS)ABSTRACT:
The broad problem I will address in this talk is design of autonomous agents
that are able to efficiently learn how to achieve desired behaviors in large,
complex environments. I will focus on one essential design component: the
ability to form high-level actions, or skills, from available primitives.
Specifically, I will characterize a useful class of skills in terms of general
properties of an agent's interaction with its environment---in contrast to
specific properties of a particular environment---and describe algorithms for
identifying and acquiring such skills autonomously.BIO:
Ozgur Simsek is a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science Department of the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research focuses on machine
learning, artificial intelligence, and network science.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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New Advances on Structural Control of Civil Engineering In China
Tue, Mar 04, 2008 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Prof. Hong-Nan Li, Ph.D.
Dalian University of Technology, ChinaAbstract:
The seminar outlines the new advances on structural control of civil engineering in China, which includes the passive control, active control, semi-active control and smart vibration control in structural control. The seminar especially focuses on the engineering applications of structural control methods. Finally, future developments of the research and implementation of structural control in China are also presented.About the Speaker:
Prof. Hong-Nan Li is the dean and the Chang Kong Scholar professor of School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering of Dalian University of Technology, China. He is also the vice-Chairman of China Panel of the International Association of Structural Control and Monitoring. Prof. Li's research interests are the structural analysis to earthquake and wind loadings, the structural health monitoring and control. He has published more than 200 journal papers and 5 books
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Professor Florian Mansfeld 70th Birthday Symposium
Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 01:15 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
The list of speakers and times are:1:15 - 1:35 pm Martin Kendig1:35 - 1:55 pm Jesse Lumsden1:55 - 2:20 pm Coffee Break2:20 - 2:40 pm Hong Shih2:40 - 3:00 pm Raymond Tsai3:00 - 3:20 pm Esra Kus
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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“High Dimension Statistical Problems: Practice and Theoryâ€
Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Narayana P Santhanam, Postdoctoral Researcher, UC BerkeleyABSTRACT: For advances in biology, computation and storage, we have invited the "curse of dimensionality" upon many problems that concern the modern engineer. The colorful phrase in quotes coined by Bellman refers to the inability of classical methods to handle problems in which the parameters associated with each data sample is comparable to the number of samples at hand.In particular, high dimension statistical problems are ubiquitous in biology, data analysis and business. In this talk we will introduce approaches for tackling some such problems.We begin with a demonstration of our approaches on text data in the context of classification problems. We will show very fast algorithms that stand up to (and in many cases, beat) sophisticated statistical learning techniques in performance and speed. We then develop the theory behind these approaches using ideas from information theory, number theory, combinatorics, analysis as well as tools in statistical learning.The big picture is to see this work as source coding driven by data analysis and biology, complementing the traditional communication/storage driven models. We conclude with a brief preview of some of the directions in which we are developing this work.BIO: Narayana Santhanam is a postdoctoral researcher hosted by Prof. Martin Wainwright in UC Berkeley. He obtained the B.Tech degree from IIT Madras, and MS and PhD with Prof. Alon Orlitsky from UC San Diego. He is interested in theory and applications related to high dimensional problems, statistical learning, information theory and combinatorial/probabilistic problems in general.He is the recipient of the 2006 Information theory society award and the 2003 Capocelli Prize.HOST: Prof. Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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A non-parametric approach to evaluating catastrophe risk and decisions: ..
Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
...Financial and Infrastructure SystemsSPEAKER: Dr. Craig Taylor,Research Professor, USC, Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Sr. V.P., Baseline Management Company, Inc. (with help from many)Abstract:
Catastrophes raise many issues for financial and infrastructure systems. These pertain to the use of insurance, bonds, swaps, design, retrofit, upgrades and many other activities that require complex evaluations. A great deal of past and current work has emphasized the use of parametric formulations of catastrophe loss distributions as means to help on major catastrophe risk decisions. This presentation goes in an opposite direction—even opposite to my own research until very recently.
With ongoing research, I currently maintain that enormous advances in computer technology (speed and storage) illuminate how these parametric fits tend to produce dramatic sub-optimization in catastrophe decision-making. Moreover, these advances further help to show that efficiency gained through these fits is minor.
Other themes proposed in this presentation are that:
• Parametric modeling can be very helpful on less major projects and especially on the sub-models developed in these complex evaluations
• Averages are very important, but so are extremes (potentially impacted by tipping points, yield points, deductibles, attachment points, limits of liability)
• Focus on efficiency should be on rendering systems evaluations (e.g., transportation systems given multiple bridge collapses) accurate yet faster
• Of necessity probabilistic, criteria for finance should incorporate gains as well as losses
• Use of equi-probable estimates such as for ROI (return on investment) in finance or for total costs in engineering greatly facilitates estimation and understanding of financial criteria
• For the extreme distributions involved with catastrophes, variance reduction techniques have so far proven to be far less important than assumed; advances in computer technology (speed, storage, pre-processing) have had vastly greater impacts.
• Complex catastrophe (or shock-based) evaluations should take advantage of these developments so that engineers, economists and others can focus on sub-models and assumptions.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Inside Polymer Nanocomposites - Interphases and Percolation
Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
L. Cate BrinsonMechanical Engineering and Materials Science and
EngineeringNorthwestern UniversityAbstract:Polymeric nanocomposites made by incorporating small amount of nanoscale inclusions into polymer matrices exhibit dramatic changes in thermomechanical properties over the pure polymers. The properties of the nanoscale fillers can be extraordinary, yet the significant changes observed cannot be due to the nanofillers alone. Enhancing their effect is the extremely significant role that the interphase plays in these systems. Given the enormous surface to volume ratio for nanoparticles, the interphase volume fraction can dwarf that of the inclusions themselves and percolate through the composite. In this talk, experimental evidence of the existence of this interphase region is presented for several nanofiller types via local and global glass transition changes and microscopy. We show that by properly controlled functionalization of the nanoscale inclusions, we can impact the properties of the interphase region and consequently control the properties of the nanocomposites. In conjunction with the experimental results, the viscoelastic behavior of multi-phase polymeric nanocomposites is modeled using a novel hybrid numerical-analytical approach that can effectively take into account the existence of the interphase region and be used to elucidate experimental results and aid in materials design. To investigate the concept of percolated interphase, a finite element approach is developed to study the impact of interphase zones on the overall properties of composite. The results have impact on potential commercial applications for nanocomposites including transparent conducting films, wear resistant coatings and hybrid systems for multifunctional performance including sensing and damage toleranceLocation: Seaver Science Library, Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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CS Colloq: Information Retrieval for Virtual Worlds
Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Information Retrieval for Virtual WorldsSpeaker: Dr. Anton Leuski (ICT)ABSTRACT:
Computer simulated virtual worlds have become increasingly important
in recent years. These worlds range from off-line setups where a
single person interacts with a single computer generated character to
massive on-line worlds where tens of thousands of people come
together interacting with each other and numerous virtual characters.
More and more people are using these computer-simulated environments
for education, training, communication, and entertainment. These
worlds are becoming a source for acquiring and polishing real-world
skills. They are also getting used for modeling and analysis of real-world human behavior patterns. Creating effective tools both for
analysis and construction of virtual words is highly important.In this talk I will show how statistical natural language processing
(NLP) techniques can be applied to address this problem. In the first
part of the talk I will discuss how to use NLP approaches such as
language modeling and conditional random fields to build virtual
characters capable of natural language understanding (NLU). I will
describe three different methods for creating NLU subsystems for
virtual characters of different complexities. I will focus my
presentation on a novel text classification algorithm that supports
creation of simple and effective virtual characters. This algorithm
builds on ideas from cross-lingual information retrieval. I will
describe experiments that show that the algorithm outperforms
traditional classification techniques and remains very robust in the
presence of partially correct language input. In the second part of
the talk, I will show how statistical language modelling, text
classification and clustering can be applied to analyze players'
conversations in an online virtual world and how this analysis can be
used to detect interesting player activities, players participating
in those activities, and interaction patterns.BIO:
Dr. Anton Leuski is a Research Scientist at the Institute for Creative
Technologies with the University of Southern California. He holds a Ph.D. in
Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His
research interests center around interactive information access,
human-computer interaction, and machine learning. Dr. Leuski's recent work has
focused on natural language problems that facilitate dialog between humans and
virtual characters, specifically language understanding and classification,
natural language generation, and activity detection and tracking in massive
collaborative environments.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Improving Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinsons Disease Using Feedback Control
Thu, Mar 06, 2008 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Sridevi Sarma
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard Medical School ABSTRACT: An estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States have Parkinson's Disease (PD), a chronic progressive neural disease that occurs when specific neurons in the midbrain degenerate, causing movement disorders such as tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia. Currently, there is no cure to stop disease progression. However, surgery and medications are available to relieve some of the symptoms in the short term. A highly promising treatment is deep brain stimulation (DBS). DBS is a surgical procedure in which an electrode is inserted through a small opening in the skull and implanted in a targeted area of the brain. The electrode is connected to a neurostimulator (sits inferior to the collar bone), which injects current back into the brain to regulate the pathological neural activity. Although DBS is virtually a breakthrough for PD, it is necessary to search for the optimal stimulation signal postoperatively. This calibration often takes several weeks or months because the process is trial-and- error. During a post-operative visit, the neurologist asks the patient to perform various motor tasks and makes subjective observations. Based on these, he/she tweaks the stimulation parameters and asks the patient to return in hours, days or even weeks. The difficulty is that there are millions of stimulation parameters to choose from, though experience has reduced this to roughly 1000 options. My current research efforts are to 1. reduce calibration time down to days by developing a systematic testing paradigm using feedback control principles, and to 2. develop a new stimulation paradigm that allows for broader classes of DBS signals to be administered. Despite the fact that DBS is simply a control signal applied to a neural system to achieve desirable motor behavior from a patient, investigators are only beginning to approach these problems from a control systems engineering perspective.BIO: Sridevi V. Sarma received a BS (1994) from Cornell University and an MS (1997) and PhD (2006) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Sri is now a postdoctoral fellow jointly at Harvard Medical School and MIT. Her research interests include control of constrained and defective systems (applications in neuroscience) and large-scale optimization. Sri is president and cofounder of Infolenz Corporation, a Marketing Analytics company. She is a recipient of the GE faculty for the future scholarship, a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow, and a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Careers at the Scientific Interface Award.HOST: Prof. Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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CS Colloq: Synthesis of Strategies for Noisy and Non-Noisy Multi-Agent Environments
Thu, Mar 06, 2008 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Synthesis of Strategies for Noisy and Non-Noisy Multi-Agent EnvironmentsSpeaker: Tsz-Chiu Au (UMD)ABSTRACT:
To create new and better agents in multi-agent environments, we may want to
examine the strategies of several existing agents, in order to combine their
best skills. One problem is that in general, we won¡¦t know what those
strategies are; instead, we¡¦ll only have observations of the agents¡¦
interactions with other agents. In this talk, I describe how to take a set of
interaction traces produced by different pairs of players in a two-player
repeated game, and then find the best way to combine them into a composite
strategy. I also describe how to incorporate the composite strategy into an
existing agent, as an enhancement of the agent¡¦s original strategy. In
cross-validated experiments involving 126 agents (most of which written by
students as class projects) for the Iterated Prisoner¡¦s Dilemma, Iterated
Chicken Game, and Iterated Battle of the Sexes, composite strategies produced
from these agents were able to make improvement to the performance of nearly
all of the agents.The speaker will also talk about a technique, Symbolic Noise Detection (SND),
for detecting noise (i.e., mistakes or miscommunications) among agents in
repeated games. The idea behind SND is that if we can build a model of the
other agent's behavior, we can use this model to detect and correct actions
that have been affected by noise. In the 20th Anniversary Iterated Prisoner's
Dilemma competition, the SND agent placed third in the ¡§noise¡¨ category, and
was the best performer among programs that had no ¡§slave¡¨ programs feeding
points to them. I'll discuss how to combine SND with the strategy synthesis
technique in order to produce agents that perform well in noisy, cooperative
environments.BIO:
Tsz Chiu Au is a graduate student at Dept. at Comp. Sci, Univ. of Maryland.
(expected PhD in 2008). He received his B. Eng. degree from Hong Kong Univ. of
Science and Technology.
His research interests lie in AI planning, multi-agent systems and problem
solving by searching. His research accomplishments include his work on coping
with noise in non zero-sum games, synthesis of strategies from interaction
traces and managing volatile data for planning processes in semantic web
service composition.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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CS Colloq: A Theory of Similarity Functions for Learning and Clustering
Thu, Mar 06, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: A Theory of Similarity Functions for Learning and ClusteringSpeaker: Maria-Florina Balcan (CMU)Abstract:
Machine Learning has become a highly successful discipline with applications in many different areas of Computer Science. A critical advance that has spurred this success has been the development of learning methods using a special type of similarity functions known as kernel functions. These methods have proven very useful in practice for dealing with many different kinds of data and they also have a solid theoretical foundation. However, it was not previously known whether the benefits of kernels can be realized by more general similarity functions. In our work, we develop a theory of learning with similarity functions that positively answers this question. Furthermore, our theory provides a new and much simpler explanation for the effectiveness of kernel methods.Technically speaking, the existing theory of kernel functions requires viewing them as implicit (and often difficult to characterize) mappings in high dimensional spaces. Our alternative framework instead views kernels directly as measures of similarity and it also generalizes the standard theory in important ways. Specifically, our notions of good similarity functions can be described in terms of natural direct properties of the data, with no reference to implicit spaces, and no requirement that the similarity function be positive semi-definite (as in the standard theory).We also show how our framework can be applied to Clustering: i.e., multi-way classification from purely unlabeled data. In particular, using this perspective, we develop a new model that directly addresses the fundamental question of what kind of information a clustering algorithm needs in order to produce a highly accurate partition of the data. Our work provides the first framework for analyzing clustering accuracy without any strong probabilistic assumptions.Biography:
Maria-Florina Balcan is a Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Avrim Blum. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Bucharest, Romania. Her main research interests are Computational and Statistical Machine Learning, Computational Aspects in Economics and Game Theory, and Algorithms. She is a recipient of the IBM PhD Fellowship.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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EE Students Practical Guide Seminar Series - Thinking ‘Interdisciplinary
Fri, Mar 07, 2008 @ 11:30 AM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Seminar Leaders: Profs. Richard Leahy and Shrikanth (Shri) NarayananWebsite: http://ee.usc.edu/news/practical-guide/ * Pizza will be provided by the EE Department.*Abstract: The lines between traditional academic disciplines are
blurring as engineers, scientists and other researchers work together to
address major societal challenges and scientific questions. Research
teams at USC are involved in large scale projects addressing issues such
as climate change and energy, biomedical nanoscience and its
applications, computational and systems biology, and the use of
technology to enhance the education, health and well-being of children.
Electrical engineers have a major role to play in these and other
multidisciplinary projects. We will discuss our experience in
multidisciplinary research focusing on the challenges and rewards of
this mode of research, as well as practical questions such as training
for graduate students and postdocs, sources and mechanisms for funding,
and the impact of interdisciplinary studies on obtaining faculty
positions and tenure. This will be an informal meeting and we look
forward to a lively dialog with those attending.Biographical SketchesProf. Richard Leahy is a Professor of Electrical Engineering, Biomedical
Engineering and Radiology at the Uni¬versity of Southern California. He
was Director of the USC Signal and Image Processing Institute from 1997
- 2003. Dr. Leahy is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and was general chair of the 2004 IEEE
International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI). He has published
over 200 papers in the field of biomedical signal and image processing.
His research interests lie in the application of signal and image
processing theory to biomedical imaging problems. His research involves
the development of methods for anatomical and functional imaging with
applications in neuroimaging and molecular imaging using PET, MRI and
EEG/MEG.Prof. Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan is Andrew J. Viterbi Professor of
Engineering and holds appointments as Professor of Electrical
Engineering and jointly Professor in Computer Science, Linguistics and
Psychology at the University of Southern California (USC). Prior to USC
he was a researcher at AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Research in New Jersey.
At USC, he is a member of the Signal and Image Processing Institute and
directs the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL). The
focus of his research group, which is interdisciplinary and includes
teams of both graduate and undergraduate students, is on human-centric
signals and systems modeling including applications in speech, audio,
video and biomedical domains. Examples of recent large projects
include building an automated speech translation system that will help
two people who do not share a language communicate, methods for
assessing literacy in young children, systems for modeling audio and
music, using novel imaging techniques to understand human speech
production, and contributions to the design of virtual humans for
simulation and training.Shri Narayanan is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and is
a recipient of several academic honors including a 2005 best paper
award from the IEEE Signal Processing society and a Mellon Award for
Excellence in Mentoring. Research papers co-authored with his students
have won several best student paper awards at major IEEE venues. He has
published over 250 papers and has fifteen granted/pending U.S. patents.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Honors Colloquium: Computational Neuroscience and Robotics
Fri, Mar 07, 2008 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture offered by Dr. Laurent Itti, Associate Professor of Computer Science at USC
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Honors Program Students and all Faculty and Staff are invited to attend
Contact: Erika Chua
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Ultra Clean Fuel via Modified Ultrasound-Assisted Oxidative Desulfurization Process at Room Temperat
Fri, Mar 07, 2008 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Shun Sheng Cheng, Ph.D
Golden Eagle Oil Refinery
North Salt Lake City, UT Abstract: Limitation of 15 ppm has been considered for the content of sulfur in diesel fuel due to the sulfur regulation by the EPA. However, ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel has not been produced sufficiently by the current desulfurization technology. Various levels of sulfur content can be observed in different diesel fuels, for instance, Valley Oil (8000 ppm), F-76 (4200 ppm) and treated Valley Oil (500 ppm). In this regard, 99.9% removal efficiency in sulfur reduction can be demonstrated by solvent extraction, as well as solid adsorption, which is after the modified ultrasound assisted desulfurization process. Moreover, recycling of ionic liquid and acid catalyst which is usually contained in the spent aqueous phase can be achieved. Interestingly, high efficiency, as well as high selectivity can be exhibited. In the pilot study, unit containing treatment tank, pipeline system, as well as high shear mixer has been created for the development of practical application of a batch-type continuous flow system. In the development, appropriate time and mild condition were given during operations. The results show 99.9% desulfurization efficiency can be achieved by the process. Moreover, utilization of ionic liquid and acid catalyst had been done at a less extent by the pilot study, as compared to the batch study.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Structural Health Monitoring using the Imote2 Smart Sensor Platform
Fri, Mar 07, 2008 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Jennifer Rice, Ph.D. Candidate
Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe declining state of civil infrastructure has motivated researchers to seek effective methods for real-time structural health monitoring (SHM). Decentralized computing and data aggregation employing smart sensors allow the deployment of a dense array of sensors throughout a structure. The Imote2, developed by Intel, provides enhanced computation and communication resources that allow demanding sensor network applications, such as SHM of civil infrastructure, to be supported. This study explores the development of a versatile Imote2 sensor board with onboard signal processing specifically designed for the demands of SHM applications. The components of the accelerometer board have been carefully selected to allow for the low-noise and high resolution data acquisition that is necessary to successfully implement SHM algorithms.Jennifer Rice received her B.S. in Civil Engineering from Texas Tech University. She received her M.S from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where her research focused on wind engineering and vibration mitigation devices for light truss structures. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois in the Smart Structures Technology Laboratory. Her research interests are in the area of structural health monitoring and wireless sensor networks.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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CS Colloq: Mechanism Design and Analysis Using Simulation-Based Game Models
Mon, Mar 10, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Mechanism Design and Analysis Using Simulation-Based Game ModelsSpeaker: Yevgeniy Vorobeychik (UMICH)Abstract:
I present a general framework for automated mechanism design on constrained design spaces when the outcomes of strategic interactions between the mechanism designer and participants are specified using a simulation. At the core of the framework lies a black-box stochastic optimization algorithm which guides the selection process of candidate mechanisms. I demonstrate the efficacy of such an approach using a series of applications to two-player design problems. A critical component of mechanism design based on simulations is an algorithm for approximately solving simulation- based games. I present several such algorithms, one of which is provably convergent, and experimentally assess their relative merits.Biography:
Yevgeniy Vorobeychik is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan AI Laboratory. He has been a fellow in the STIET (Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Electronic Transactions) program for two years and has received honorable mention in the Computer Science & Engineer honors competition for his work on simulation-based mechanism design. His research interests include electronic commerce, game theory, mechanism design, multi-agent systems, and artificial intelligence.Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Michael Kahn
Mon, Mar 10, 2008 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Michael Kahn, PhD, Provost Professor of Medicine and Pharmacy, Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Broad Institute for Integrative Biology and Stem Cell Research, USC
"Wnt Signaling: the Good the Bad and the Ugly"Audiences: Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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“Brillouin Scattering Slow Light in Fibers, and Secure Optical Key Generationâ€
Mon, Mar 10, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Avi Zadok, Post-doctoral Scholar, CalTechABSTRACT: Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is a non-linear propagation effect which couples between a strong pump wave and a typically weak probe wave in an optical fiber. The gain process experienced by the probe wave is accompanied by a controllable group delay. In recent years, SBS has been widely used for the variable delay of high-rate data streams (slow and fast light), for a potential application of optical buffers [1]. In the first half of the talk, several less-known aspects of SBS-based slow light, which could lead to a broader range of applications, will be demonstrated. First, the maximum usable delay may be extended through careful optimization of the pump wave modulation, and control of its spectrum. Second, SBS can be applied to process and delay analog waveforms. Such processing is highly attractive, for example, in optical beam-forming in broadband, phased array antennas [2]. Finally, SBS is strongly dependent on polarization and fiber birefringence. This dependence may be used for locking and synthesis of the output probe state of polarization.
The second half of the talk will be dedicated to a novel protocol for secure key generation in the optical domain. The proposed scheme is based on establishing Ultra-long Fiber Laser (UFL) oscillations along a link between two users [3]. The key bits in the UFL system are represented by the choices of spectrally-selective mirrors made by the two users. While these choices can be simply determined by the legitimate end users, they may not be reconstructed by an eavesdropper employing either time or frequency domain attacks. Unlike quantum key distribution protocols, the UFL system consists entirely of standard, off-the-shelf fiber-optic components. The system allows for the use of amplifiers, and its bit rate decreases only linearly with distance. Experimental results demonstrating secure code generation will be presented.[1] Z. Zhu et al., J. Lightwave Technol. 25, 201-206, 2007
[2] A. Zadok et al., Photonics Technol. Lett. 19, 462-464, 2007
[3] J. Scheuer and A. Yariv, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 140502, 2006BIO: Avi Zadok received his B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1994, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University in 1999 and 2007. His Ph.D. research areas included dynamic optical filters, statistical optics, optical communications and slow light. He is presently a post-doctoral scholar with the group of prof. Amnon Yariv at Caltech, where his work concentrates on active Silicon photonics and optical communications. HOST: Prof. Alan Willner, willner@usc.eduLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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CS Colloq: Optimizing Sensing from Water to the Web
Tue, Mar 11, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Optimizing Sensing from Water to the WebSpeaker: Andreas Krause (CMU)Abstract:
Where should we place sensors to quickly detect contaminations in drinking water distribution networks? Which blogs should we read to learn about the biggest stories on the web? These problems share a fundamental challenge:
How can we obtain the most useful information about the state of the world, at minimum cost?Such sensing, or active learning, problems are typically NP-hard, and were commonly addressed using heuristics without theoretical guarantees about the solution quality. In this talk, I will present algorithms which efficiently find provably near-optimal solutions to large, complex sensing problems. Our algorithms exploit submodularity, an intuitive notion of diminishing returns, common to many sensing problems; the more sensors we have already deployed, the less we learn by placing another sensor. To quantify the uncertainty in our predictions, we use probabilistic models, such as Gaussian Processes. In addition to identifying the most informative sensing locations, our algorithms can handle more challenging settings, where sensors need to be able to reliably communicate over lossy links, where mobile robots are used for collecting data or where solutions need to be robust against adversaries and sensor failures. I will also present results applying our algorithms to several real-world sensing tasks, including environmental monitoring using robotic sensors, activity recognition using a built sensing chair, deciding which blogs to read on the web, and a sensor placement competition.Bio:
Andreas Krause is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Computer Science Department of Carnegie Mellon University. He is a recipient of a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship, and his research on sensor placement and information acquisition received awards at several conferences (KDD '07, IPSN '06, ICML'05 and UAI '05). He obtained his Diplom in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Technische Universität Mˆ¢nchen, where his research received the NRW Undergraduate Science Award.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Distinguished Lecture Series: Compressive Sensing
Wed, Mar 12, 2008 @ 02:30 AM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
BIO:
Emmanuel Candes received his B. Sc. degree from the Ecole Polytechnique (France) in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in statistics from Stanford University in 1998. He is the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Caltech, he was an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Stanford University, 1998--2000. His research interests are in computational harmonic analysis, multiscale analysis, approximation theory, statistical estimation and detection with applications to the imaging sciences, signal processing, scientific computing, inverse problems. Other topics of interest include theoretical computer science, mathematical optimization, and information theory.Dr. Candes received the Third Popov Prize in Approximation Theory in 2001, and the DOE Young Investigator Award in 2002. He was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 2001. He co-authored a paper that won the Best Paper Award of the European Association for Signal,Speech and Image Processing (EURASIP) in 2003. He was selected as the main lecturer at the NSF-sponsored 29th Annual Spring Lecture Series in the Mathematical Sciences in 2004 and as the Aziz Lecturer in 2007. He has also given plenary and keynote addresses at major international conferences including ICIAM 2007 and ICIP 2007. In 2005, he was awarded the James H. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing by SIAM. Finally, he is the recipient of the 2006 Alan T. Waterman Medal awarded by the US National Science Foundation.ABSTRACT:
One of the central tenets of signal processing and data acquisition is the Shannon/Nyquist sampling theory: the number of samples needed to capture a signal is dictated by its bandwidth. This talk introduces a novel sampling or sensing theory which goes against this conventional wisdom. This theory now known as Compressed Sensing or Compressive Sampling'' allows the faithful recovery of signals and images from what appear to be highly incomplete sets of data, i.e. from far fewer measurements or data bits than traditional methods use. We will present the key ideas underlying this new sampling or sensing theory, and will survey some of the most important results. We will emphasize the practicality and the broad applicability of this technique, and discuss what we believe are far reaching implications; e.g. procedures for sensing and compressing data simultaneously and much faster. Finally, there are already many ongoing efforts to build a new generation of sensing devices based on compressed sensing and we will discuss remarkable recent progress in this area as well.TIME/LOCATION:
Lecture: 2:30-3:30PM (GER Auditorium)
Reception: 3:30-4:30PM (GER Patio)Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium, Reception to follow in the Patio
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Development of Upconversion Nanophosphors for Bioimaging and
Wed, Mar 12, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Yiguang JuDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace
Princeton UniversityPrinceton, USAAbstractUpconversion nanophosphors provide new opportunities for bioapplications because of their stable optical property, increased light penetration depth in tissue, low toxicity, and reduced background scattering compared to conventional markers. First, the seminar will give a review of the recent progress of synthesis of rare-earth (erbium and ytterbium) doped upconversion nanophosphors by using combustion and in-solution thermolysis methods. Second, the particle morphology and the luminescence properties with infrared excitation are investigated. The correlations between the nanoparticle fluorescence, particle crystal structure, synthesis temperature, and precursor conditions are summarized. The dynamic dependence of particle luminescence time on particle size and phonon energy will be analyzed. The kinetic mechanism of the non-linear dependence of the luminescence intensity on the excitation power is discussed. Third, the ability of specific targeting of functionalized upconversion nanophosphors on surfaces coated by biotins will be demonstrated. Finally, the efficacy of photodynamic therapy by using upconversion nanophosphors on singlet oxygen production and lung cancer tissue growth are presented.
Location: Seaver Science Library, Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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CS Colloq: Rethinking Network Protocol Design for Large Scale Sensor Networks
Thu, Mar 13, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Rethinking Network Protocol Design for Large Scale Sensor NetworksSpeaker: Prof. Prasun Sinha (Ohio State)Abstract:
Designing large-scale, unattended and long-lasting sensor networks requires rethinking about fundamental protocol design principles. Existing network protocols for medium access control, routing, and data collection are often based on network structures that are expensive to compute and maintain. Limited energy resources is one of the prime considerations in the design of large-scale sensor networks. We propose a new paradigm of protocol design termed "structure-free design" that relies primarily on dynamic and opportunistic forwarding decisions. It makes use of packet forwarding techniques based on MAC layer anycasting to take advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless channels. This paradigm can be used to design protocols at various layers of the network stack. In particular, I will show how the MAC layer protocol in presence of duty-cycling, and the data aggregation protocol can be designed with provable performance bounds. These protocols have also been shown to provide significant performance improvement using TinyOS implementation on the Kansei testbed at OSU. This work was motivated by observations made during our DARPA/NEST demonstration in 2004 where the world's largest sensor network of 1000 nodes was deployed over a 1.3 km x 0.3 km region for detection, classification and tracking of intruders. Further information on the DARPA project can be found here: http://ceti.cse.ohio-state.edu/exscalBiography:
Prasun Sinha is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State University. His interests are in the area of wireless and sensor networking. Prior to joining OSU he worked at Bell Labs, New Jersey for two years. He holds a PhD from UIUC (2001), MS from Michigan State University (1997) and B.Tech from IIT Delhi (1995), all in Computer Science and Engineering. He is a winner of the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2006. During his graduate studies he won the Ray Ozzie Fellowship (UIUC, 2000), the Mavis Memorial Scholarship (UIUC, 1999), and the Distinguished Academic Achievement Award (MSU, 1997). More information about his research can be found at http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~prasun
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 222
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Innovative Bioreactors for Contaminated Air and Water Treatment: From Nano to Field Demonstration
Thu, Mar 13, 2008 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lyman Handy Colloquium SeriesPresentsMarc A. DeshussesDepartment of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of California RiversideAbstractBiological systems have a fantastic potential for the biotransformation of a wide range of substances including treatment of numerous man made pollutants. This provides opportunities for the development of novel and environmentally friendly bioprocesses for pollution control. In this seminar, recent research in the area of bioreactors for air and groundwater pollution control conducted in Deshusses' group will presented and discussed. This will includes the simple synthesis of reactive nanomaterials for environmental application, the use of molecular methods and establishment of relationships between pollutant removal and DNA or RNA fingerprints, high performance biotrickling filters treating H2S at a gas contact time as low as 1.5 seconds, and the treatment of perchlorate contaminated groundwater by bacteria deriving energy from iron particles on which they are attached. The discussion will include lab and field data and a brief assessment of the sustainability of some of these novel developments. BiographyDr. Deshusses' broad research interests are related to the design, analysis and application of systems for bioremediation of wastes in air, water and soils. One area of on-going research is air pollution control in gas-phase bioreactors. Results from this work have resulted among others in a better fundamental understanding of how VOCs and odors are biodegraded in biofilters and biotrickling filters. The research has also shown how to convert odor control chemical scrubbers to high-efficiency biotrickling filters at wastewater treatment plants. Other areas of research include bioremediation of groundwater contaminated with the gasoline additives (MTBE and TBA) or with perchlorate, the development of gas phase nanosensors, and reactive nanomaterials for environmental applications. Other research interests include biofilms, application of molecular tools for monitoring complex cultures, combined chemical and biological treatment of wastes, membrane bioreactors, and modeling of environmental bioprocesses.http://www.engr.ucr.edu/~mdeshuss/
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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Information Flow Over Wireless Networks: A Deterministic Approach
Thu, Mar 13, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Salman Avestimehr, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of EECS, UC-BerkeleyABSTRACT How does information flow over wireless networks? Answer to this basic question is one of the most challenging problems in the field of wireless network information theory. From a practical point of view, the answer to this question will have a significant impact on the architectural design of future wireless systems. So far, the majority of research done in this area have been based on the classical additive Gaussian noise model for wireless channels. However, due to the complexity of this model, except for the simplest networks, the analysis of most other networks has been an open problem for many years.To make further progress, we develop a deterministic channel model which is analytically simpler than the Gaussian model, but at the same time captures the essential physical layer properties of the wireless medium: signal strength, superposition and broadcast. We will demonstrate how this model can be an effective tool to help visualize the flow of information and obtain intuitive insights in many challenging network scenarios. Furthermore, somewhat surprisingly, these deterministic results translate to good approximation for the Gaussian case. As an example, we apply this approach to cooperative wireless relay networks (with a single source node and a single sink node and arbitrary number of relay nodes to help with the communication), whose capacity even in the simplest case with only one relay is unsolved for more than 30 years. We first determine the capacity of deterministic relay networks. This result is a generalization of the max-flow min-cut theorem for wireline networks. Next we use the connections between the deterministic model and the Gaussian model to approximate the capacity of Gaussian relay networks within a constant number of bits, independent of the channel parameters.In addition, the deterministic model can also be used to replace other simplistic models, such as collision model, to capture some abstraction of the physical layer at higher layers of network design. This is an important step towards developing new networking algorithms that exploit the available degrees of freedom at the physical layer.BIO: Salman Avestimehr is presently a Ph.D. candidate advised by Prof. David Tse at UC Berkeley. He was a Vodafone fellow at UC Berkeley during 2003-2005. He received his B.Sc. degree (with honors) from Sharif University of Technology in 2003, and his M.Sc. degree from UC Berkeley in 2005, both in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His research interests include wireless communications and networks, information theory and signal processing.HOST: Professor Michael J. Neely, mjneely@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Simulation-Based Engineering and Science (SBES); Applications for Large Scale Systems
Thu, Mar 13, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Masanobu Shinozuka Professor & Chair, Civil & Environmental Engineering-UC IrvineThis presentation reviews the development of analytical models that evolved over the last decades for the prediction and evaluation of the performance of large-scale systems, including civil infrastructure systems, under probabilistic natural and manmade hazards. Key milestones in the evolution are highlighted in terms of notable analytical innovations, enhanced sophistication in modeling, quantum jumps in the spatial coverage, and broadening of the consequence domain into socio-economic dimensions from technical dimension only. The overall predictive model for the system is constructed by integrating a number of modular components each of which represents a subsystem model or a model of specific hazard impact. Such predictive models are used in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulation techniques in the spirit of SBES. It is notable that in this process, the system can be improved (upgraded or retrofitted) virtually, and then subjected to various probabilistic hazard scenarios. This allows us to identify the most effective method of improvement under probabilistic hazard scenarios (e.g., a particular earthquake ground motion with an estimated probability of occurrence, or under a set of scenario earthquakes representing the regional probabilistic seismic hazard). However, the effectiveness can be measured in terms of the benefit-cost ratio derived for each of stakeholder groups. And hence, the optimal effective method chosen for implementation can be completely different depending on which stakeholder group prevails. Some examples of the use of such predictive models for seismic performance evaluation and for evaluation of cost-effectiveness of implementing a method of retrofit are presented for the utility networks of LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water & Power), MLGW (Memphis Light, Gas and Water) and for the highway network of Caltrans (California Department of Transportation). In these examples, engineering-wise fundamentalistic definitions of robustness, resilience and sustainability of these systems are used.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Micro and Miniature Technologies of Advanced Energy and Thermal Systems
Fri, Mar 14, 2008 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Amir FaghriUnited Technologies Endowed Chair Professor in
Thermal-Fluids EngineeringUniversity of ConnecticutAbstract:The 21st century will see the development of a wide range of active miniaturized energy devices with application in energy management and power sources, electronic cooling, energy storage and bioengineering. Although these active devices are effective, they are often cumbersome and inefficient considering the auxiliary supporting devices such as pumps, fans, and other moving parts they require for operation. A more efficient and novel approach involves use of passive small energy and thermal devices with no moving parts. Two research thrusts will be presented in this talk. We propose a new miniature passive direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) that includes a fuel cell stack and ancillary systems with no moving parts. This system uses passive approaches for fuel storage and delivery, air breathing, water management, CO2 release, and thermal management. The performance characteristics of the passive miniature DMFC system will be presented.Increasing component densities of the integrated circuit (IC) and packaging level have led to serious challenges in thermal management problems in electric cooling. Micro heat pipes are one of the promising cooling devices because of their high efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness. Theoretical and experimental analysis performed on micro and miniature heat pipe arrays reveals a 300% improvement in effective thermal conductivity at high heat fluxes over conventional approaches.BiographyDr. Faghri is currently the United Technologies Endowed Chair Professor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering. He was the Dean of the School of Engineering from 1998-2006, and the Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department from 1994-1998 at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Faghri developed major initiatives and incentives to promote quality research and graduate education, including establishing the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center with significant support from the federal and state governments, as well as the private sector. Dr. Faghri has authored seven books and edited volumes, more than 260 archival technical publications (including 160 journal papers), and 11 U.S. patents. His latest textbook, Transport Phenomena in Multiphase Systems, was published by Elsevier in 2006. He has served as a consultant to several major research centers and corporations, including Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national laboratories, ExxonMobil, and Intel Corporation as well as serving on the boards of directors of both publicly-traded and private companies. Dr. Faghri has served as a principal investigator conducting research in the area of thermal management and multiphase transport phenomena for applications ranging from advanced cooling systems to alternative energy systems including fuel cells, solar energy systems and thermal energy storage devices. Dr. Faghri has received numerous external research contracts and grants from the National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and various industries. Dr. Faghri has received many honors and awards, including the 1998 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) Thermophysics Award, the 1998 American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Heat Transfer Memorial Award and the 2005 ASME James Harry Potter Gold Medal.Dr. Faghri received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.S. with highest honors from Oregon State University.Friday, Mar. 14, 2008KAP14412:00 pm
Lunch will be servedPlease RSVP to: amundy@usc.eduLocation: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 144
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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Honors Colloquium: Revolutionizing Access to Space
Fri, Mar 14, 2008 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture offered by Mr. Jeff Ward, Vice President of Avionics for Space Exploration Technologies
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Honors Program Students and all Faculty and Staff are invited to attend
Contact: Erika Chua
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An International News Monitoring Solution by Salim Roukos
Fri, Mar 14, 2008 @ 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Designed to address the exponential growth of broadcast information, the IBM Translingual Automatic Language Exploitation System (TALES) allows users (say an English speaker) to monitor in near real-time, foreign language news broadcasts and news websites, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. TALES currently supports Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, and English web and broadcast news monitoring. In this talk, I will describe the component technologies of speech recognition, statistical machine translation, and information extraction that are used to build the TALES speech translation application.Bio:
Salim Roukos is Senior Manager and CTO for Translation Technologies at IBM. His research areas at IBM have been in statistical machine translation, information extraction, statistical parsing, and statistical language understanding for conversational systems. Roukos received his B.E. from the American University of Beirut, in 1976, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Florida, in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Roukos has served as Chair of the IEEE Digital Signal Processing Committee in 1988. Roukos lead the group that created IBM's ViaVoice Telephony product, the first commercial software to support full natural language understanding for dialog systems in 2000, and more recently the first statistical machine translation product for Arabic-English translation in 2003. More recently, Roukos leads the Rosetta Consortium (IBM with six leading US universities) for the DARPA GALE project for developing machine translation technology for both text and speech inputs and for developing distillation systems to answer user's requests for information.Host: Dr. Shrikanth NarayananLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gloria Halfacre
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Urban Engineering and Sustainability for Infrastructure Design
Fri, Mar 14, 2008 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Heekyung PARK
Professor and Head
Department of Civil and Env. EngineeringKAISTAbstract
Generally speaking, sustainability emphasizes three principles; ‡@ recognition of limitation of
carrying capacity (environmental conservation), ‡A distributive justice (equity among inter- and
intra-generations, and inter-species), and ‡B growth, but of a different kind (allocative efficiency
from savings, technology development and re-use). Since a great deal of human activities occur
in urban areas, civil engineers have played a key role in achieving sustainability, especially, in
urban dimensions through infrastructures they plan, design, construct, operate and maintain.
Engineering is a purposeful activity. To satisfy the three principles, therefore, the objectives in
design should be set up and system boundaries should be expanded until they contain all the
objectives. Moreover, system being newly defined requires quite tough works; dealing with
complexity and uncertainty with scientific application. Although it is possible to tackle the above
requirements for urban infrastructure design from various standpoints, we will introduce our own
approach, calling it by the name of ÂgUrban Engineering and Sustainability (UES)Âh. In designing
urban infrastructures, this is to fully consider the three principles, and to effectively coordinate
various technologies. To do this, UES should be based on more integrated, organized, and
scientifically validated views. Also, its methodology is synthetic, quantitative, and flexible.
Just like other countries, Korea has been promoting sustainability, especially, in carrying out
large development projects. In spit of its efforts, it is not easy to say Âgquite successfulÂh largely
due to the unbalanced approach as shown in Fig.1. We need to change our pathway so that the
sustainable development can be achieved more smoothly and thus effectively. To do this at least
in the urban infrastructure domain, the Korea government and KAIST proclaimed new initiatives
and launched a number of R&D projects. KAIST President set a research plan recently (Suh,
2007). It focused on energy, environment, water and sustainability (EEWS) to solve global
problems in 21st Century, and then established seven KAIST Institutes (KIs). MOCT VC10 &
urban regeneration project (Fig.2): Since 2007, the urban regeneration research center headed by
the author has participated in the Urban Regeneration project supported by Korea Ministry of
Construction and Transportation. The center is in charge of developing urban infrastructure
regeneration technology for sustainable urban development with a budget of $ 44 million USD
for 7 years. In this project, we are now trying to develop technologies and systems, using the
concept of UES, to establish urban infrastructure systems just like an eco-system. For that, the
researches are driven by ten keywords; ‡@ technical innovation, ‡A high-efficiency, ‡B diversity,
‡C densification /compaction, ‡D convenience, ‡E stability, ‡F ecological conservation, ‡G
resource conservation, ‡H recycling, ‡I connectedness.
2
Fig.1. Two types of pathways for sustainable development
Fig.2. Systems in the Urban Regeneration Project Unbalanced Sustainable
Nakdong River Contamination Crisis (1991)
Economy
Environment
Social
Equity
Range of
Sustainable
IMF & Green
Belt Dissolution
LeftistsÂf Fall
(2007~ ) - Uninformed & unbalanced
- Less adaptive & more rigid
- Frequent crises
- Vulnerability to uncertaintie
- Informed & balanced
- More adaptive & more flexible
- More effective
- Fit for engineering
Economy
Environment
Social
Equity
Balanced Sustainable Pathway
Regeneration of
Structural Capability
CUIRS P ackage
Urban Environmental
Regeneration
Urban Disaster Prevention
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Spring Break
Mon, Mar 17, 2008 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
No class
Audiences: Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloq: Disambiguation of Textual and Web Data
Tue, Mar 18, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Disambiguation of Textual and Web DataSpeaker: Dr. Dmitri V. Kalashnikov(UCI)Abstract:
Effectiveness of decision support, data exploration and scientific discovery tools is closely tied to the *quality of data* on which such techniques are applied. It is well recognized that the outcome of the analysis is only as good as the data on which the analysis is performed. Organizations, today, spend a tangible percent of their budgets on information quality tasks (e.g., removing duplicates, correcting errors, filling missing values, etc.) to improve data quality prior to pushing data through the analysis pipeline. Forrester group estimates that the market for data quality will pass the $1 Billion mark by 2008. Given the critical importance of data quality, many efforts, in both industry and academia, have explored systematic approaches to addressing the information quality challenges. Solutions range from approaches addressing specific problems (e.g., address resolution, merging product catalogs) to generic techniques for de-duplication, record linkage, entity resolution, etc. that work across a wide range of domains.This talk focuses primarily on the *Entity Resolution* challenge that arises because objects in the real world are referred to using references or descriptions that are not always unique identifiers of the objects, leading to ambiguity. Such a problem is especially common when multiple data sources are being fused together to create a single unified data warehouse or when data is derived from unstructured sources (e.g., text documents) or semi-structured sources (e.g., HTML Web pages).The talk will summarize our ongoing disambiguation work. Specifically it will cover our general-purpose, domain-independent, disambiguation framework, which we refer to as Graph-based Disambiguation Framework (GDF). GDF is based on the premise that many real-world datasets are relational in nature and contain not only information about entities but also relationships among them, knowledge of which can be used to disambiguate among representations more effectively. The talk will also briefly cover our disambiguation work on creating spatial awareness from raw textual reports and our state of the art algorithms for solving the Web People Search problem.Key Words: Entity Resolution; Web People Search; Spatial Awareness from Text.Biography:
Dmitri V. Kalashnikov received the diploma cum laude in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Moscow State University, Russia, in 1999 and the PhD degree in Computer Science from Purdue University in 2003. Currently, he is a researcher at the University of California, Irvine. He has received several scholarships, awards, and honors, including an Intel Fellowship and Intel Scholarship. His current research interests are in the areas of entity resolution & disambiguation, web people search, spatial situational awareness, moving-object databases, spatial databases, and GIS.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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CS Colloq: Biomimetic Legged Locomotion and Odor Guided Behavior for Humanitarian Landmine Detectio
Wed, Mar 19, 2008 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Biomimetic Legged Locomotion and Odor Guided Behavior for Humanitarian Landmine DetectionSpeaker: Dr. Thrishantha Nanayakkara (Harvard) Abstract:
Humanitarian demining is a pre-requisite to the economic revival of many affected countries like Angola, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Kosovo, Cambodia, Sri Lanka etc. My current research efforts make an attempt to find answers to three fundamental questions: 1. How a trace of explosives can be localized using a sensory signal gradient leading to the source 2. How a robotic platform can guide such a sensor under ground contact force constraints (to avoid detonating mines) in an unstructured environment with soft terrain conditions like in an abandoned mine field 3. How a colony of such robots and sensors can adaptively re-organize their collective behaviors to identify the locations of the explosive traces in the most efficient manner. The talk elaborates a project in progress in Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Harvard University to find answers to the above questions. The current focus is on a heterogeneous system of trained rodents, field robots, and human experts to detect landmines in an unstructured forest environment. A salient feature of the proposed system is that each sub-system (robots, animals, and humans) improve their individual capabilities by interacting with each other while performing an area coverage operation in a minefield.Biography:
Thrishantha was born in 1970 in Galle, Sri Lanka. He graduated with a first class honors degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa in 1996. He secured the MSc degree in Electrical Engineering in 1998 and the PhD degree in Systems Control and Robotics from Saga University in 2001. From 2001 ¡V 2003 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (www.bme.jhu.edu/~reza ). From 2003 to date, he has been in the faculty of the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He is the principle investigator of the ¡§laboratory for intelligent field robots¡¨ at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (www.mrt.ac.lk/iarc/thrish ). He has been awarded the outstanding researcher award of the University of Moratuwa in 2006. He has published 4 book chapters, 7 international journal papers, and 26 international conference papers. He was the founding general Chair of the International Conference on Information and Automation with technical co-sponsorship of IEEE region 10. At present he is a research fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, USA. Keywords: Field robots for landmine detection, animal-robot cooperation, adaptive control, reinforcement based learning, fuzzy and neural network based control, evolutionary optimization.Location: Charles Lee Powell Hall (PHE) - 223
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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CS Colloq: Strategy Selection for Noisy Empirical Game Models
Fri, Mar 21, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Strategy Selection for Noisy Empirical Game ModelsSpeaker: Chris Kiekintveld (UMICH)Abstract:
Game theory offers tools for principled analysis of multi-agent systems. However, many potential applications are not amenable to conventional analytic approaches due to the size of the strategy space, payoff uncertainty, and other complications. I will introduce an alternative approach that uses empirical methods (e.g. simulation) as the basis for modeling and reasoning about the game. I illustrate this methodology with an application to the Trading Agent Competition Supply Chain Management game. The use of empirical models raises a number of challenging research questions. Among them is how players should modify their analysis to account for the uncertainty inherent in their observations. The remainder of my talk focuses on this question, evaluating several algorithms for selecting strategies based on noisy empirical game models.Bio:
Chris Kiekintveld is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, working with Michael Wellman. His primary research interest is strategic reasoning in multi-agent systems, including both agent design and mechanism design applications. He is an active participant in the Trading Agent Competition as a lead developer for Deep Maize, one of the most successful agents in the supply chain management game.Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Anand Asthagiri, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Caltech
Mon, Mar 24, 2008 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Quantitative systems analysis of multicellular morphodynamics
Audiences: Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Harnessing Attosecond Science for Coherent X-Ray Generation and Applications
Tue, Mar 25, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Dr. Margaret MurnaneJILAUniversity of Colorado, Boulder"Harnessing Attosecond Science for Coherent X-Ray Generation and Applications"Lecture 2:00 PMOlin Hall of Engineering (OHE 122)
Hosted by Prof. Hossein HashemiAbstract
To generate coherent x-ray beams, extreme nonlinear optical techniques have succeeded in upshifting visible laser light into the x-ray region of the spectrum. This ability has given us a new coherent light source that spans such a large region of the spectrum that we now access processes that occur on sub-femtosecond or attosecond (1 as=10-18 s) time-scales. Equally intriguing is the fact that we have learned how to use femtosecond laser light to coherently manipulate electrons in atoms and molecules on their fundamental, attosecond timescales. The richness and complexity of attosecond science and technology is only just beginning to be uncovered. As I will discuss in this talk, attosecond science can capture the complex, interwoven dance of electrons in molecules and materials. Attosecond science also shows great promise for developing new ultrasensitive molecular imaging and spectroscopic
techniques. Finally, attosecond science represents the most promising avenue to achieve what had seemed hopelessly impractical until now -- the generation of bright, coherent, hard x-ray beams using a tabletop-scale apparatus.Bio
Margaret Murnane is a Fellow of JILA and is a member of the faculty in the Department of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado. She received
her Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, before joining the faculty
at Washington State University in 1990. In 1996, Professor Murnane moved to the University
of Michigan, and in 1999 she moved to the University of Colorado. Prof. Murnane's research interests have been in ultrafast optical and x-ray science and technology. She runs a joint research group with her husband, Professor Henry Kapteyn, as well as a high tech laser company, KMLabs. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the AAAS. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. She was also awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 2000. Prof. Murnane is very interested in increasing diversity in science and engineering.Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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Feedback Control Solutions for Microscopic and Macroscopic Traffic Control
Wed, Mar 26, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pushkin Kachroo, Ph.D., P.E.,(Visiting)Assoc. Professor,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Nevada, Las VegasAbstract: The talk will present problems in microscopic (vehicle) and macroscopic traffic control. It will give a brief overview of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and how these problems are related to ITS. The mathematical modeling and control methods designed for these problems will be shown. The second half of the talk will present feedback control based pedestrian evacuation under macroscopic control. It will present system of hyperbolic partial differential equations as the model for pedestrian dynamics, present some analysis and control designs in this framework.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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CS Colloq: Coordinating Multiple Moving Objects: From Robots to Microdroplets
Thu, Mar 27, 2008 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Coordinating Multiple Moving Objects: From Robots to MicrodropletsSpeaker: Prof. Srinivas AkellaABSTRACT:
Coordinating the collision-free motions of multiple moving objects is
a challenging problem, with applications ranging from automotive
workcells to lab-on-a-chip devices. I will first describe our work on
the coordination of multiple robots with dynamics constraints, with
applications in manufacturing cells and UAV coordination. I will then
describe the coordination of microdroplets in digital microfluidic
"lab-on-a-chip" systems. A digital microfluidic system controls
individual droplets of chemicals on an array of electrodes; the
chemical analysis is performed by moving, mixing, and splitting
droplets. This promising new technology can impact applications in
biological research, point-of-care clinical testing, and biochemical
sensing by offering tremendous flexibility and parallelism through
software control. Since the simultaneous coordination of even tens of
droplets on the array is extremely difficult to program manually, we
are developing modular array layouts and network-style droplet routing
algorithms to automatically enable the flexible coordination of
hundreds of droplets. I will discuss our ongoing work in applying
these algorithms to enable versatile digital microfluidic biochips for
problems in biology.BIO:
Srinivas Akella is with the Computer Science department and Center for
Automation Technologies and Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Troy, New York. He was a Beckman Fellow at the Beckman
Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, before joining RPI. He received his Ph.D. in
Robotics from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon
University and his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology,
Madras. He has received the CAREER award from the National Science
Foundation, and was selected as a Rensselaer Faculty Early Research
Career Honoree. His research interests are in developing optimization
and geometric algorithms for applications in robotics, automation,
microsystems, and biotechnology.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 406
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Translocon-Assisted Folding of Membrane Proteins: New insights into Lipid-Protein Interactions
Thu, Mar 27, 2008 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Distinguished Lecture SeriespresentsProfessor Stephen H. White,
Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics,
University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697AbstractRecent studies of the translocon-assisted folding of membrane proteins have revealed two unexpected findings about the insertion of transmembrane helices across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. First, the so-called S4 voltage-sensor helix of potassium channels, comprised of hydrophobic residues and four arginine residues, can be inserted. Second, polyleucine helices as short as 10 residues are readily inserted. Exploration of these observations using physical studies of synthetic peptides in model membranes and molecular dynamics simulations provide new insights into lipid-protein interactions. They reveal that the lipid bilayer is far more complex—and interesting—than its usual lollypop cartoon suggests. The biological, physical, and molecular dynamics data to be presented demonstrate the extreme adaptability of phospholipids that arises from the privileged relationship between their phosphate groups and lysine and arginine residues. This adaptability makes possible the transmembrane insertion of very short helices and the independent stability of potassium channel voltage-sensor domains in membranes. [Research supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Center for Research Resources.]
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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CS Colloq: Stabilizing Internet Routing: or, A Story of Heterogeneity
Thu, Mar 27, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Stabilizing Internet Routing: or, A Story of HeterogeneitySpeaker: Brighten Godfrey (UC Berkeley) Abstract:
A significant cause of the unreliability of end-to-end communications on the Internet is route instability: dynamic changes in routers' selected paths. Instability is becoming even more problematic due to the increasing prevalence of real-time applications and concerns about the scalability of the Internet routing architecture. Yet Route Flap Damping, the main mechanism for combating instability, has introduced unexpected pathologies and reduced availability. This talk describes a more principled approach to stabilizing Internet routing. First, we characterize the design space by identifying general approaches to achieve stability, and giving theoretical bounds on optimal strategies within each approach. Second, I will describe Stable Route Selection (StaRS), a new mechanism which uses flexibility in route selection to improve stability without sacrificing availability. Simulation and experimental results show that StaRS improves stability and end-to- end reliability while deviating only slightly from preferred routes, and closely approaching our theoretical lower bound. These results indicate that StaRS is a promising, easily deployable way to safely stabilize Internet routing. StaRS's stability improvements are enabled by dramatic heterogeneity in route failure patterns. I will present the case that StaRS is an instance of a much more general principle: that heterogeneity --- variation in reliability, processing speed, bandwidth, or other metrics --- should quite often be viewed as an advantage. This thesis is supported by practical and theoretical results in a variety of settings including distributed hash tables, overlay multicast, and job scheduling.Biography:
Brighten Godfrey's research concerns distributed and networked systems, including Internet routing architecture, distributed algorithms, analysis of networks, peer-to-peer systems and overlay networks. He is presently a Ph.D. candidate advised by Ion Stoica at UC Berkeley.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
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Total Maximum Daily Load for Trash
Fri, Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Eric Wu, Ph.D., P.E., TMDL Unit IILos Angeles Regional Water Quality Control BoardAbstract In 1998, the United States Environmental Protection Agency entered into a Settlement Agreement with Heal the Bay and other environmental groups regarding Clean Water Act requirements to establish Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) in region of the State administered by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board Los Angeles Region, including TMDLs for trash impaired waterbodies. Up to date, Regional Board has adopted eight trash TMDLs, seven of which have become effective after USEPA approval since 2001. Currently, Regional Board staff has one trash TMDL under development. Trash has been demonstrated to be detrimental to environment and ecological systems. To protect beneficial uses of waterbodies in the Los Angeles Region, including coastal waterbodies, a numeric target of "zero" trash was determined by the Regional Board. Both point sources, such as storm drains, and nonpoint sources, commonly resulting from random trash disposal, are significant contributors to trash impairments. Compliance with zero trash discharge compels municipalities to enforce and evaluate existing trash control practices and to develop innovative approaches such as "full capture" systems which prevent trash from entering municipal stormdrain systems. Many full capture systems have been designed and installed to remove point sources trash and a program of Minimum Frequency of Assessment and Collection in conjunction with Best Management Practices (MFAC/BMP) has been developed to manage nonpoint source trash. Zero trash is expected to be attained with schedules prescribed by the Regional Board for point and nonpoint sources trash.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 210
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Design and Analysis Novel Wideband Analog/RF Integrated Circuits
Fri, Mar 28, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Payam HeydariUniversity of California at Irvine"Design and Analysis Novel Wideband Analog/RF Integrated Circuits"Abstract:
This talk will first give a brief overview of research in Nanoscale Communication IC (NCIC) Lab at UC-Irvine. Then, design of novel high frequency circuit techniques/topologies/architectures including distributed radios for wideband wireless transceivers, 22-29GHz receiver front-end for short-range automotive radars, and ultra-broadband buffers/amplifiers for broadband transceivers will be presented.Biography:
Payam Heydari received his B.S. and M.S. degrees (Honors) in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Southern California in 2001. He is now an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
During the summer of 1997, he was with Bell-labs, Lucent Technologies where he worked on noise analysis in high-speed CMOS integrated circuits (ICs). He worked at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center on gradient-based optimization and sensitivity analysis of custom ICs during the summer of 1998.
Dr. Heydari is the recipient of the 2007 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Guillemin-Cauer Award, the 2005 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Darlington Award, the 2005 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the 2005 Henry Samueli School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, the Best Paper Award at the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), and the 2001 Technical Excellence Award in the area of Electrical Engineering from the Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage (APSIH). He was recognized as the 2004 Outstanding Faculty in the EECS Department of the University of California, Irvine. His name appeared in the 2006 edition of Who's Who in America and Who's Who in Science and Engineering.
Dr. Heydari serves as the Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems - I, and the Guest Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. He currently serves on the Technical Program Committees of Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), International Symposium on Low-Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED), and International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED). He is the director of the Nanoscale Communication IC (NCIC) Lab.
His research interests include design of ulta-high frequency analog and RF ICs, and high frequency on-chip interconnect design for high-speed ICs. He has published papers in premier conferences on integrated circuit design including ISSCC, CICC, RFIC Symposium, DAC. Results of the research in the NCIC Lab have appeared in more than 60 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.
He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.Date: Friday, March 28, 2008
Place: GFS 106
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PMLocation: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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Gabriel Silva, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, UCSD
Mon, Mar 31, 2008 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
New tools for imaging and quantitatively mapping function in neuronal and glial networks
Audiences: Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Simulation of Silicon Nanowire Transistors and De-embedding Study for Advanced RFCMOS/BiCMOS Techno
Mon, Mar 31, 2008 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Jing Wang, Ph.D."Simulation of Silicon Nanowire Transistors and De-embedding Study for Advanced RFCMOS/BiCMOS Technologies"IBM Semiconductor Research and Development CenterAbstract:Semiconductor nanowires are being extensively studied as key materials in today's exciting research on nanotechnology. In particular, nanowire-based transistors have attracted broad attention as a promising substitute for the conventional MOSFET beyond its scaling limits. To understand device physics in depth and to assess the performance limits of these novel nanowire devices, simulation is becoming increasingly important. In this talk, a systematic, computational study of silicon nanowire transistors (SNWTs) is presented. The topics include: 1) 3-D electrostatics and ballistic limits of SNWTs with various cross-sectional shapes, 2) surface roughness scattering in SNWTs and 3) bandstructure effects in Si and Ge nanowire FETs with arbitrary orientations. In addition to the SNWT work, this talk also covers an experimental analysis of various on-wafer de-embedding techniques for RF modeling of advanced RFCMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technologies.Biography:Jing Wang obtained his Bachelor's degree (with the highest honor) in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University, China in 2001 and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2005. His Ph.D. research, supervised by Prof. Mark Lundstrom, covered device physics and simulation of silicon nanowire transistors, exploration of nanoscale MOSFETs, and simulation of high electron mobility transistors. Since September 2005, Jing Wang has been working as an advisory engineer at the IBM Semiconductor Research and Development Center, Hopewell Junction, NY, where he is currently a technical lead of the compact modeling team developing IBM's next generation CMOS and RFCMOS technologies. Jing Wang is author/co-author of more than twenty journal/conference papers and a book chapter, co-inventor of two issued and seven pending US patents, and recipient of several IBM-internal awards for his invention achievements and his innovative work on RF de-embedding.Date: Monday, March 31, 2008
Place: HNB 100
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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CS Colloq: Intelligent Tutoring for Planning and Reflection
Mon, Mar 31, 2008 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: Intelligent Tutoring for Planning and ReflectionSpeaker: Dr. H. Chad Lane (ICT)Abstract:
Computer tutors have made significant progress since they made their first appearance in the late 1960's. The application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques led to a "second generation" of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) that were able to model cognitive skills, give individualized feedback, and track learning with greater precision. In the late 1990's, ITSs emerged that were able to carry out meaningful dialogues with students in order to promote learning. These modern systems leverage advances in the field of natural language processing and dialogue systems. In this talk, I will present my research on building ITSs that use natural language techniques to address the metacognitive skills of planning and reflection. The first part of the talk will focus on a dialogue-based tutoring system for novice programmers that I developed at the University of Pittsburgh that supports basic problem solving and planning skills. In an evaluation, the primary findings were that students who received tutoring from the ITS exhibited an improved ability to compose plans and displayed behaviors suggestive of thinking at greater levels of abstraction than students in a read-only control group. The second part of the talk will provide of an overview of my more recent work conducted at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. This research effort focuses on the use of explainable AI, natural language generation, and the development of a model of reflective tutoring to support learning of complex skills in game-based learning environments. Here, we consider the nature of learning in loosely-defined domains, serious games, and how tutoring can be used to promote productive learning behaviors.Biography:
Dr. H. Chad Lane is a Research Scientist at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies who specializes in intelligent tutoring systems and cognitive modeling. Since joining the ICT in the fall of 2004, he has focused on issues related to learning in game-based and immersive environments. Chad earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 under the direction of Dr. Kurt VanLehn. His dissertation focused on the role of dialogue-based intelligent tutoring for the planning and design of computer programs. http://people.ict.usc.edu/~laneLocation: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Colloquia
