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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for March 30, 2015
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering Talk
Mon, Mar 30, 2015
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Receptions & Special Events
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. 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!Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office
Audiences: Prospective Undergrads and Families
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Power Grid Voltage Stability and Distributed Control
Mon, Mar 30, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: John W. Simpson-Porco, University of California Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Power Grid Voltage Stability and Distributed Control
Abstract: Technological and regulatory advances are driving the transition of the electric power grid from a hierarchical, centrally-managed physical system to a decentralized cyber-physical system. While distributed generation and demand response offer lower carbon emissions and energy costs, the deployment of these technologies is increasingly eroding the already thin stability margins of our aging power delivery infrastructure.
This talk addresses these technological challenges in two parts. We first present distributed controllers for frequency and voltage regulation in inverter-based islanded power grids. Our physically intuitive control strategies fuse classic power systems intuition with ideas from multi-agent systems, resulting in plug-and-play, provably stable designs. Under minimal connectivity requirements, communication among the inverter units allows for the recovery of centralized control performance using only localized measurements. We present theoretical and experimental results validating our designs.
In the second part of the talk, we explore more deeply the fundamental properties of AC power flow. Despite decades of research, little analytical understanding exists regarding the solution space of these crucial nonlinear equations, leaving exhaustive numerics as the only reliable option to assess grid operability. Here we present a sharp, closed-form condition which guarantees the existence of a unique high-voltage power flow equilibrium. Our key idea is to explicitly combine the complex structure of the network with the size and locations of power demands, leading to sharp estimates of grid voltage stability margins. We highlight applications of our condition to on-line voltage stability assessment and stability margin-enhancing feedback control.
Biography: John W. Simpson-Porco is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. He received his B.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from Queen's University in 2010. Mr. Simpson-Porco is a recipient the Automatica Best Paper Prize, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Fellowship, and the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation Outstanding Scholar Fellowship. His research interests are centered on the stability and control of multi-agent systems and complex dynamic networks, with a focus on modernized electric power grids.
Host: Petros Ioannou, ioannou@usc.edu, EEB 200B, x04452
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Mar 30, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andrew Laine, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chair of Biomedical Engineering (Columbia University)
Talk Title: QUANTITATIVE IMAGING INFORMATICS IN COST EFFECTIVE PET IMAGING AND CLASSIFICATION OF LUNG DISEASEâ
Abstract: âQUANTITATIVE IMAGING INFORMATICS IN
COST EFFECTIVE PET IMAGING AND
CLASSIFICATION OF LUNG DISEASEâ
Andrew F. Laine, D.Sc.
Percy K. and Vida L.W. Hudson Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Professor, Department of Radiology (Physcis)
Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Columbia University, New York, NY
USA
This talk presents a novel method for emphysema quantification, based on parametric modeling of intensity distributions in the lung and a hidden Markov measure field model to segment emphysematous regions. The framework adapts to the characteristics of an image to ensure a robust quantification of emphysema under varying CT imaging protocols and differences in parenchymal intensity distributions due to factors such as inspiration level. Compared to standard approaches, the present model involves a larger number of parameters, most of which can be estimated from data, to handle the variability encountered in lung CT scans. The method was used to quantify emphysema on a cohort of 87 subjects, with repeated CT scans acquired over a time period of 8 years using different imaging protocols. The scans were acquired approximately annually, and the data set included a total of 365 scans. The results show that the emphysema estimates produced by the proposed method have very high intra-subject correlation values. By reducing sensitivity to changes in imaging protocol, the method provides a more robust estimate than standard approaches. In addition, the generated emphysema delineations promise great advantages for regional analysis of emphysema extent and progression, possibly advancing disease subtyping, including COPD.
An important tool for studying brain disorders is positron emission tomography (PET), a nuclear imaging technology that allows for the in vivo functional characterization and quantification of blood flow, metabolism, protein distribution, and drug occupancy using radioactively tagged probes (tracers). Full quantification of PET images requires invasive arterial input function (AIF) measurement through online arterial blood sampling for the duration of the scan (1-2 hours). The AIF is used to correct images by accounting for the tracer bioavailability, which depends on an individual's physiological capacity for clearance, distribution and metabolism of the tracer. However, AIF measurement is invasive, risky, time consuming, uncomfortable for patients, and costly. Perhaps most importantly, it is impractical at the point-of-care and therefore limits clinical utility of PET. We believe an integrative multi-modal approach is possible via the amount of personalized information about the physiological and biochemical makeup of individuals available in their electronic health record (EHR). This talk will outline a novel approach to combine EHR and dynamic PET imaging data in an optimization framework based on simulated annealing to non-invasively estimate the AIF. Techniques that will be outlined are applicable across imaging modalities, organs and diseases, such as functional imaging of prostate cancer images where increasingly more complex tracers are utilized for assessment and require AIF measurement.
Biography: Andrew F. Laine, D.Sc.
BIO-SKETCH
Andrew F. Laine received his D.Sc. degree from Washington University (St. Louis) School of Engineering and Applied Science in Computer Science, in 1989 and BS degree from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). He was a Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) from 1990-1997. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 1997 and served as Vice Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University since 2003 - 2011. He is currently Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Heffner Biomedical Imaging at Columbia University and the Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Radiology (Physics). He is a Fellow of IEEE and AIMBE, and he is currently the President of IEEE EMBS (Engineering in Biology and Medicine Society).
Professor Laine is a leader in medical imaging, image analysis and signal processing, computational biology, and biometrics research. He was the first to apply multi-resolution representations for feature analysis of digital mammography and cardiac ultrasound. He pioneered work on medical imaging that he first introduced in 1992 using nonlinear processing techniques of wavelet representations for contrast enhancement. He currently analyzes real-time video 3-D ultrasounds of the heart in an effort to better understand and treat heart disease. He is developing software that will measure the strain on the muscles of the heart in real-time 3-D and localize infarcted or ischemic tissue that could be salvaged by intervention, thus recognizing at an early stage what tissue is damaged or at risk. Director of the Heffner Biomedical Imaging Laboratory at Columbia Engineering, Laine holds two patents related to 3-D processing of ultrasound, has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, and has graduated more than 25 doctoral students in the field of medical image analysis.
Host: Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Bangkok Graduate Information Session
Mon, Mar 30, 2015 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Students who have earned or are in the process of earning a Bachelor's degree in engineering, math, or a hard science (such as physics, biology, or chemistry) are welcome to attend to learn more about applying to our graduate programs.
The session will include information on the following topics:
Master's & Ph.D. programs in engineering
How to Apply
Scholarships and funding
Student life at USC and in Los Angeles
There will also be sufficient time for questions. Refreshments will be provided.
Please contact us at viterbi.gradprograms@usc.edu if you have any inquiries about the event.
In order to guarantee seating availability, we request completion of the online registration form using the Eventbrite links on the event pageAudiences: Students with an undergraduate backrgound in engineering, math or science
Contact: William Schwerin
