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Events for March 27, 2009

  • Meet USC

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen 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. 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 9:00 a.m. and again at 12:00 p.m. Please visit http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/visit/meet_usc.html to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    Location: USC Admission Center

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Multirate Anypath Routing in Wireless Mesh Networks - Rafael Laufer

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Abstract: We present a new routing paradigm that generalizes
    opportunistic routing in wireless mesh networks. In multirate anypath
    routing, each node uses both a set of next hops and a selected
    transmission rate to reach a destination. Using this rate, a packet is
    broadcast to the nodes in the set and one of them forwards the packet on
    to the destination. To date, there is no theory capable of jointly
    optimizing both the set of next hops and the transmission rate used by
    each node. We bridge this gap by introducing a polynomial-time algorithm
    to this problem and provide the proof of its optimality. The proposed
    algorithm runs in the same running time as regular shortest-path
    algorithms and is therefore suitable for deployment in link-state routing
    protocols. We conducted experiments in a 802.11b testbed network, and our
    results show that multirate anypath routing performs on average 80% and up
    to 6.4 times better than anypath routing with a fixed rate of 11 Mbps. If
    the rate is fixed at 1 Mbps instead, performance improves by up to one
    order of magnitude.
    Short Bio: Rafael Laufer received the B. Sc. (cum laude) and the M.Sc.
    degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de
    Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2003 and 2005, respectively.
    During his M.Sc. studies, he received the FAPERJ's "Bolsa Nota 10"
    fellowship, awarded to the top two graduate students of Electrical
    Engineering. During 2002, he was with Cisco Systems, Inc. as an intern. He
    is now working towards the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at the
    University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with Prof. Leonard Kleinrock.
    Rafael received the Marconi Society's Young Scholar Award in 2008 in
    "recognition of outstanding academic achievement and intellectual promise
    in the field of communications science." His major research interests are
    distributed systems, wireless networking, security, and operating systems.
    He is a member of the IEEE Communications Society and a student member of
    IEEE.
    Host: Bhaskar Krishnamachari bkrishna@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Shane Goodoff

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  • Information Theory Applied to Fiber-Optic Transmission: Limits to Spectral Efficiency of Optical Fib

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. René-Jean Essiambre
    Bell Labs, Alcatel-LucentAbstract: Fiber-optic communication systems constitute the backbone of the communication network infrastructure. The main physical elements of the optical paths in these networks are the optical fiber (as the physical medium for transport) and the optical amplifier (to combat signal attenuation). The transmission bandwidth available over each optical path is enormous, on the order of 10 THz. Despite such a large bandwidth being available, there is a tremendous demand to increase the capacity of fiber-optic communication systems by increasing spectral efficiencies to multiple bits/s/Hz while still maintaining transmission distances on the order of a few thousands of kilometers. Achieving such high spectral efficiency requires using signals with multiple levels in phase and/or amplitude, and possibly using both states of polarization. Transmission of such multilevel signals becomes increasingly impacted by the Kerr fiber nonlinearity, a physical phenomenon unique to the 'fiber channel'. The Kerr nonlinearity results in signal distortions that rapidly increase with signal power. The question then arises: how to apply Shannon's information theory to the `fiber channel' and is there a maximum spectral efficiency associated to the Kerr fiber nonlinearity?In this talk, we will describe how we applied Shannon's theory to the `fiber channel' and present the early results in the direction of conservatively estimating the fiber capacity. A spectral efficiency of ~7 bits/s/Hz (in a single polarization) for transmission over 1000 km in an optically-routed network will be shown to be achievable.Biography: René-Jean Essiambre is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent. He received his doctorate from Université Laval and studied at the University of Rochester before joining Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent) in 1997. Dr. Essiambre is contributing to the design of advanced optical transmission systems, especially in relation to the management of fiber nonlinearities. Interests include modulation formats, detection and optimization techniques for the design of optically routed networks to increase capacity, optical transparency and functionality of wavelength-division multiplexed communication systems. He is a recipient of the 2005 Engineering Excellence Award from OSA, where he is a Fellow.Host: Gerhard Kramer, gkramer@usc.edu, EEB 536, x07229

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • MIMO HSDPA Testbed Measurements

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dipl.-Ing. Christian MehlführerAbstract: In this presentation, throughput measurement results of High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) are shown. After a short overview about HSDPA and the utilization of multiple antennas in this standard, the measurement methodology and measurement setups in alpine and urban environments are explained. In both environments, the 2x2 and 4x4 MIMO systems achieve more than twice and four times the throughput of the SISO system, respectively. Furthermore, the measured data throughput is compared to an "achievable" throughput that is closely related to channel capacity. This comparison reveals an SNR loss of 6-9 dB, leaving room for improvements.Biography: Christian Mehlführer was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1979. In 2004 he received his Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Vienna University of Technology. Besides his diploma studies he worked part time at Siemens AG where he performed integration tests of GSM carrier units. After finishing his diploma thesis on implementation and real-time testing of space-time block codes, for which he received the Vodafone Förderpreis 2006 (together with Sebastian Caban), he now is member of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Design Methodology of Signal Processing Algorithms and works towards his doctoral thesis at the same institute. His research interests include experimental investigation of MIMO systems, MIMO HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), MIMO WiMAX (802.16), as well as the upcoming LTE (Long Term Evolution of UMTS) system.Host: Andreas Molisch, molisch@usc.edu, EEB 530, x04670

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • Dongrui Wu Defense

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 12:30 PM - 02:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Abstract:This research is focused on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) under uncertainties, especially linguistic uncertainties. This problem is important because many times linguistic information, in addition to numerical information, is an essential input of decision-making. Linguistic information usually conveys more uncertainty, and it is necessary to incorporate and propagate this uncertainty during the decision-making process because uncertainty means risk.MCDM problems can be classified into two categories: 1) multi-attribute decision-making (MADM), which selects the best alternative(s) from a group of candidates using multiple criteria, and 2) multi-objective decision-making (MODM), which optimizes conflicting objective functions under constraints. Perceptual computer, an architecture for computing with words, is implemented in this dissertation for both categories. For MADM, we consider the most general case that the weights for and the inputs to the criteria are a mixture of numbers, intervals, type-1 fuzzy sets and/or words modeled by interval type-2 fuzzy sets. Novel weighted averages are proposed to aggregate this diverse and uncertain information so that the overall performance of each alternative can be computed and ranked. For MODM, we consider how to represent the dynamics of a process (objective function) by IF-THEN rules and then how to perform reasoning based on these rules, i.e., to compute the objective function for new linguistic inputs. Two approaches for extracting the IF-THEN rules are proposed: 1) linguistic summarization to extract rules from data, and 2) a knowledge mining approach to extract rules through survey. Applications are shown for all approaches proposed in this dissertation.Bio:Dongrui Wu received a B.E in Automatic Control from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, P.R. China, in 2003, an M.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 2005, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, in 2008. Currently he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at USC. His research interests include computational intelligence, information fusion, machine learning, decision-support systems, signal processing, control theories, and their applications to smart oilfield technologies. Dongrui Wu has more than 20 publications, including a book (co-authored with J. M. Mendel) "Perceptual Computing: Aiding People in Making Subjective Judgments'' by the Wiley-IEEE Press, and a Best Student Paper Award from the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems.

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 403

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gloria Halfacre

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium: Reflections on the Impact of Technology on Engineering

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Julius F. Bogdanowicz, Director, Engineering Programs, Advanced Systems & Technology, Network Centric Systems, Raytheon offers a lecture entitled "Reflections on the Impact of Technology on Engineering" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium.

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs

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  • The Alfred E Mann Innovation in Engineering Seminars 2009

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM

    Alfred E Mann Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Anika Joseph, Mann Fellow - Biomedical Engineering"Hyperspectral Pathology: Image Acquisition and Analysis for a New Digital Gold Standard"

    Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Susan Cooper

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  • Integrated Sys Seminar - Photonic ADCs (Dr. George Valley, Aerospace Corp.)

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker : Dr. George Valley, Aerospace Corp.Abstract :This tutorial presents the status of electronic ADCs, basic ADC concepts, classes of photonic ADCs, the role of microwave photonic links, and lessons learned from realizing a high resolution, wide bandwidth time-stretch photonic ADC.

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

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  • Digital Audio and Video Broadcasting Methods

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Dr. Carl-Erik W. Sundberg
    Visiting Senior Scientist, DoCoMo Labs USA
    cews@docomolabs-usa.comAbstract: In this talk we will give a brief overview of the technology building blocks used in current and future digital audio and video broadcasting standards with emphasis on wireless transmission methods, media source coding, digital modulation and channel coding methods. First we will very briefly talk about the early history of broadcasting and analog TV and AM, FM and SW radio. The emphasis is then on wireless digital broadcasting methods including HDTV. We will briefly cover schemes such as digital terrestrial television broadcasting (ATSC, DVB-T, DVB-H, DMB, ISDB-T) and digital audio broadcasting,(Eureka 147,HD Radio, Hybrid IBOC AM and FM, DMB, DRM, MediaFLO ).
    The US terrestrial digital audio broadcasting standard HD Radio will be discussed in some detail, especially the FM in band version. In this context we cover some research areas in coding and modulation for the current version of the HD Radio standard as well as for future potential upgrades and modifications of this standard. This includes areas such as complementary punctured pair convolutional (CPPC) codes with optimized bit placement, List Viterbi Algorithms (LVAs) as well as "Dirty Paper Coding" (DPC) type of precoding methods for simultaneous transmission of analog FM and digital data.
    We will also briefly look at complementary methods of audio and video broadcasting such as satellite, cable and fiber transmission and internet streaming. Finally we will discuss the convergence of digital broadcasting with 3G (e.g. Media Broadcast and Multicast Service, MBMS) and 4G cellular technologies as well as speculate about future wireless broadcasting methods.References:
    [1] C-E. W. Sundberg et al. "Technical Advances in Digital Audio Radio Broadcasting", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 90, No 8, pp 1303-1333, August 2002.[2] www.ibiquity.com[3] H. C. Papadopoulos and C-E. W. Sundberg, "Precoded Modulo- Precancelling Systems for Simulcasting Analog FM and Digital Data", IEEE Transactions on Communications, pp 1279-1288, August 2008. Also see Conference Proceedings, ICC2005, Seoul, Korea, June 2005.Biography: Carl-Erik W. Sundberg (S'69-M'75-SM'81-F'90-LF'08) was born in Karlskrona, Sweden in 1943 and received the M.S.E.E. and the Dr. of Technology (PhD) Degrees from the University of Lund, Sweden in 1966 and 1975 respectively. During 1966 to 1975 he held various research and teaching positions at Lund University. In 1968 he served in the Swedish Navy. During 1976 he was an ESA Research Fellow at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands. From 1977 to 1984 he was a Research Professor (Docent) in the department of Telecommunication Theory, University of Lund, Sweden. From 1981 to 2000 he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA and during 2001 he was a DMTS at Agere Systems Research, Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA. He retired from Bell Labs/Agere in December 2001. Since 2002 he is President and Chief Scientist at SundComm, Sunnyvale, California, USA. During 2002 he was a Consultant at iBiquity Digital Corp., Warren, NJ, USA. During part of 2003, 2004 and 2005 he was a Visiting Professor at Korea University, Seoul, Korea. Since 2006 he is a Visiting Senior Scientist at DoCoMo Labs, Palo Alto, California. He has published over 110 journal papers and contributed over 150 conference papers. Dr. Sundberg has over 120 US and international patents. Among his scientific and technical contributions that have found real world applications can be mentioned constant amplitude modulation CPM for 2G GSM cellular, Circular Viterbi Tailbiting Decoding for 2G TDMA cellular, CPPC codes for US HD Radio FM, Multi-streaming for US HD Radio AM and Joint Program Audio Coding for US Digital Satellite Radio. Dr. Sundberg is a coauthor of Digital Phase Modulation, (New York: Plenum, 1986), Topics in Coding Theory, (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989) and Source-Matched Digital Communications (New York: IEEE Press, 1996). In 1986 he and his coauthor received the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society's Paper of the Year Award and in 1989 he and his coauthors were awarded the Marconi Premium Proc. IEE Best Paper Award. Two of his papers were selected for inclusion in the IEEE Communications Society 50th Anniversary Journal Collection in 2002 consisting of the 50 (actually 56) most influential papers published by IEEE Communications Society during its first 50 years (The Best of the Best, IEEE Press/Wiley 2007). He has been guest editor for IEEE Journal on Special Areas in Communications 1988-1989 (Coded Modulation) and 2004-2006 (4G Wireless). He is a Fellow of the IEEE since 1990 and is listed in Marquis Who's Who in America.Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x07326

    Location: Frank R. Seaver Science Center (SSC) - 319

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • MOBILE IMAGE MATCHING - TOWARDS MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Bernd Girod,
    Department of Electrical Engineering
    Stanford UniversityAbstract: Hand held mobile devices, such as camera phones or PDAs, are expected to become ubiquitous platforms for visual search and mobile augmented reality applications. For mobile image matching, a visual database is typically stored at a server in the network. Hence, for a visual comparison, information must be either uploaded from the mobile to the server, or downloaded from the server to the mobile. With relatively slow wireless links, the response time of the system critically depends on how much information must be transferred. We review recent advances in mobile matching, using a "bag-of-visual-words" approach with robust feature descriptors, and show that dramatic speed-ups are possible by considering recognition and compression jointly. Real-time implementations of different applications, such as recognition of landmarks or CD covers, demonstrate the relative advantages of image processing on the phone, the server, and/or both.Biography: Bernd Girod is Professor of Electrical Engineering and (by courtesy) Computer Science in the Information Systems Laboratory of Stanford University, California. He was Chaired Professor of Telecommunications in the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg until 1999. His research interests are in the areas of video compression, networked media systems, and image databases. He has published over 400 conference and journal papers, as well as 5 books. Professor Girod has been involved in several startup ventures, among them Polycom (Nasdaq:PLCM), Vivo Software, 8x8 (Nasdaq: EGHT),and RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK). He received the Engineering Doctorate from University of Hannover, Germany, and an M.S. Degree from Georgia Institute of Technology. Prof. Girod is a Fellow of the IEEE and of EURASIP and a member of the German National Academy of Sciences. He received the 2002 EURASIP Best Paper Award, the 2004 EURASIP Technical Achievement Award, and the 2007 IEEE Multimedia Communication Best Paper Award.Host: Professor Antonio Ortega

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Veal

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  • BME HAPPY HOUR

    Fri, Mar 27, 2009 @ 05:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Student Activity


    Come to USC's beloved TRADITIONS to catch up with or meet friends old and new! Let's make this a BME tradition every other Friday.

    Location: Tradition's (located in The Lot)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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