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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for March 20, 2019
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering TalkWed, Mar 20, 2019
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS juniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.
Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.
Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
RSVPLocation: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 12:00 AM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Receptions & Special Events
Bi-Weekly regular faculty meeting for invited full-time Computer Science faculty only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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ECE Seminar: Harnessing Nature to Make Wireless Positioning Practical and Accurate
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Manikanta Kotaru, Ph.D. Candidate, Stanford University
Talk Title: Harnessing Nature to Make Wireless Positioning Practical and Accurate
Abstract: Positioning has been the Holy Grail of wireless sensing research with a wide range of applications from tracking virtual reality devices to in-body implants. However, despite two decades of active research, a widely deployable system with high accuracy has always been elusive. Wireless signals reflected from objects in the environment interfere with and distort the signal from the intended target device, corrupting the position estimates. In order to fight this 'multipath' phenomenon, previous approaches built specialized wireless devices with huge antenna arrays or large bandwidths making them impractical for ubiquitous deployment. In this talk, I will introduce a new technique called 'Synthetic Aperture Radio' that harnesses, rather than fighting, the multipath that naturally occurs in the environment and exploits the device motion that naturally occurs in these applications. By applying this technique, I have demonstrated the first real-time and centimeter-level accurate positioning system using standard, off-the-shelf WiFi radios. Building on synthetic aperture radio technique, I have developed practical positioning systems for indoor navigation, tracking virtual reality accessories and resource constrained devices like endoscopic capsules. Looking forward, these techniques lay a foundation for utilizing ubiquitous wireless devices for developing important machine vision applications in various domains like medical sensing, physical security and autonomous vehicles.
Biography: Manikanta Kotaru is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on building widely-accessible computational sensing systems with applications in robotics, virtual reality, Internet of Things and medical sensing. His research bridges RF sensing and machine vision, and brings theory and systems together. His work has appeared in premier conferences in both communications and computer vision such as SIGCOMM and CVPR. He is a recipient of Stanford Graduate Fellowship.
Updated: 03/15/2019
Host: Professor Pierluigi Nuzzo, nuzzo@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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AME Seminar
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ananya Renuka Balakrishna, University of Minnesota
Talk Title: Microstructural Engineering Of Energy-Related Materials
Abstract: Future advances in aerospace engineering depend on developing materials with enhanced properties. For example, the next generation of electric aircrafts will need light-weight low-fatigue materials, high-performance sensing and actuation materials, and high-density energy storage materials. Material properties can be drastically enhanced by tuning the materials microstructural features. In my research, I develop and apply phase-field methods to investigate how microstructures form and evolve in materials, and how we can engineer these microstructures to enhance material properties. In this talk, I will present applications of phase-field modeling to two material systems: electro-mechanical -ferroelectrics- and chemo-mechanical -batteries- systems. First, I will show how microstructural engineering of ferroelectric materials generate actuation strains several times greater than piezoceramics in market. Second, I will show that not only the electrodes microstructures but also their crystallographic texture can be tailored to enhance battery materials mechanical strength. Overall, the phase-field models developed in my research provide a theoretical and computation framework to engineer next generation aerospace materials with enhanced properties and extended lifespans.
Ananya Balakrishna is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota investigating microstructures in magnetic and light-interactive materials. She completed her PhD in Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering at the University of Oxford, before pursuing postdoctoral research at MIT as a Lindemann Postdoctoral fellow. Broadly, her research focuses on developing mathematical models to investigate the links between material microstructures and properties in energy storage and functional materials. Her research on engineering ferroelectric microstructures has been recognized by the Falling Walls London Lab prize, and the British Federation for Women Graduates Award. She has also won other awards including the ASME Best student paper award, and the Felix scholarship for her graduate study.
Host: AME Department
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
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Spring 2019 ITP Open House
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Technology & Applied Computing Program (TAC)
Workshops & Infosessions
All current and prospective students are invited to attend. Learn about our classes, ask questions about our minor programs, and meet our faculty.
We'll have snacks from Porto's Bakery to enjoy with coffee and tea, and advisers will be available to answer questions about course planning and how to declare minors! Stop by whenever you are able to. No RSVP required.More Information: Spring 2019 ITP Open Houses.pdf
Location: Waite Phillips Hall Of Education (WPH) - B26
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tim Gotimer
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Antonis Papachristodoulou, University of Oxford
Talk Title: Exploiting Sparsity in Semidefinite and Sum of Squares Programming
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Semidefinite and sum of squares optimization have found a wide range of applications, including control theory, fluid dynamics, machine learning, and power systems. In theory they can be solved in polynomial time using interior-point methods. However, these methods are only practical for small- to medium- sized problem instances.
For large instances, it is essential to exploit or even impose sparsity and structure within the problem in order to solve the associated programs efficiently. In this talk I will present recent results on the analysis and design of networked systems, where chordal sparsity can be used to decompose the resulting SDPs, and solve an equivalent set of smaller semidefinite constraints. I will also discuss how sparsity and operator-splitting methods can be used to speed up computation of large SDPs and introduce our open-source solver CDCS. Lastly, I will extend the decomposition result on SDPs to SOS optimization with polynomial constraints, revealing a practical way to connect SOS optimization and DSOS/SDSOS optimization for sparse problem instances.
Biography: Antonis Papachristodoulou joined the University of Oxford in 2006, where he is currently Professor of Engineering Science and a Tutorial Fellow in Worcester College. Since 2015, he has been EPSRC Fellow and Director of the EPSRC & BBSRC Centre for Doctoral training in Synthetic Biology. He holds an MA/MEng in Electrical and Information Sciences from the University of Cambridge (2000) and a PhD in Control and Dynamical Systems from the California Institute of Technology, with a PhD Minor in Aeronautics (2005). In 2015 he was awarded the European Control Award for his contributions to robustness analysis and applications to networked control systems and systems biology and the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to the analysis and design of networked control systems. He serves regularly on Technical Programme Committees for conferences, and was associate editor for Automatica and IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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CAIS Seminar: Robin Petering, Nick Barr, & AJ Srivastava - MyPath: Intervention for Reduction in Violence among at Risk Youth
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Robin Petering, Dr. Nick Barr, & Dr. AJ Srivastava,
Talk Title: MyPath: Intervention for Reduction in Violence among at Risk Youth
Series: USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: One in ten young people between ages 18-25 experience homelessness every year in the United States. The lives of youth experiencing homelessness is characterized by violence, more so than their housed counterparts. This is the result of several, often co-occurring, risk factors such as experience of childhood trauma, subsistence survival strategies including drug and alcohol use, and exposure to perpetrators during street tenure. Violence has many consequences from physical injury to heightened mental health distress. Reducing exposure and engagement to violence is critical for safe and successful exit from homelessness. However, to date, implementing a violence reduction intervention in this community has had little success.
MyPath is a peer-based social network intervention designed to reduce experiences of violence in a community of young persons experiencing homelessness. MyPath utilizes strategic machine learning selection methods to identify potential Mindfulness and Yoga Peer Ambassadors and invites them to participate in an intensive 3-hour mindfulness and yoga retreat that relates the two practices to the impact of violence. The retreat is followed by weekly 1-hour trainer-facilitated mindfulness and yoga classes that are open for attendance of non-peer ambassadors as well. MyPath is novel in that it uses an algorithm, called ViolMin, to identify potential peer ambassadors, which takes into account the uncertainty in links of surveyed network data and identifies "influential" individuals in a network, those who have a history of violent behavior, and yet are open to intervention.
The MyPath Pilot was implemented in partnership with Safe Place for Youth (SPY) during the summer of 2018. During this project, eight Mindfulness and Yoga Peer Ambassadors, selected by the ViolMin algorithm, participated in the program. Six weeks after the introduction of the MyPath programming, pilot results showed a statistically significant reduction in violence. The number of young people involved in physical fights dropped by 40%. There was also an increase of 85% in number of individuals who practice regular mindfulness and yoga. Moreover, the selected Mindfulness and Yoga Peer Ambassadors were highly engaged in the program. One MyPath ambassador reflected on the program, "People think threatening and violence is the answer. If everyone did mindfulness we would be living in a semi-better world. I didn't know anything about mindfulness, all I did know was violence, how to protect myself. When I got to SPY, I learned mindfulness and learned how to relax with yoga. I feel like a different person when I do it."
Biography: Dr. Robin Petering is interested in improving the lives of young persons who experience homelessness through community-based research, policy advocacy and program implementation. Her research agenda focuses on reducing violence through innovative intervention approaches. @robinpetering
Dr. Nicholas Barr is a postdoctoral fellow interested in improving mental and behavioral health outcomes in populations at high risk for adverse experiences. His research agenda focuses on investigating the protective effects of mindfulness and emotion regulation.
Dr. Ajitesh Srivastava is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Ming Hsieh Institute of Electrical Engineering. His research interests include Data Mining, Social Network Analysis, Graph Algorithms, Optimizations, and Parallel Computing.
Host: Milind Tambe
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
