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Events for April 04, 2013
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ASCE's 2013 Pacific Southwest ConferenceThu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 07:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
The Pacific South West Conference (PSWC) is ASCEââ¬â¢s annual student chapter competition that puts skills related to the civil engineering profession to the test. The competition involves a wide range of events including but not limited to concrete canoe, steel bridge, environmental design, surveying, quiz bowl, technical paper,concrete bowling, basketball, and soccer. The competition features three full days of events with an awards banquet on the last day. Participants include teams of civil engineering students from 18 major colleges and universities in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii.
This year USC ASCE has the honor of co-hosting the event with LMU and CBU on the USC University Park Campus. Friday's events will all take place at the Santa Fe Dam.Location: USC Campus
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: American Society of Civil Engineers
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EE-EP Seminar
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jia Zhu, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Talk Title: Nanostructured Energy Devices---phonons, electrons and photons on the nanoscale
Abstract: Supplying the world with sustainable energy is one of the most pressing issues in modern society. Dramatically improved control over heat, electricity and solar energy is essential to create a new energy paradigm. Nanomaterials with carefully tailored properties (such as interface, geometry) can be used to manipulate the flow of phonons, electrons and photons, to enable novel energy devices in an unconventional manner. In this talk, I will present two examples of nanostructure-enabled energy devices.
As a significant amount of energy is consumed worldwide just for controlling heat flows, advanced thermal power devices for self-control heat flow are very desirable, but significantly underdeveloped. Here I will present the world’s first switchable thermal rectifier, a three terminal nonlinear device for advanced thermal control. It opens the door for a variety of applications, including on-chip cooling, building efficiency, and thermal energy storage.
Photon management, involving both absorption enhancement and reflection reduction, is
critical to all photovoltaic devices. Here I will demonstrate a novel nanodome solar
cell structure with an efficient photon management design. Two types of photovoltaic devices, amorphous silicon and dye sensitized solar cells, are used to demonstrate the concept. They both achieve the highest short circuit current, and state of art conversion efficiency. More strikingly, the design and process is not in principle limited to any specific material system, hence it opens up exciting opportunities for all classes of photovoltaic devices.
Biography: Jia Zhu is currently a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. His scientific research interest is in the area of nanomaterials and devices. Dr. Zhu has published approximately 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is a reviewer of over 20 scientific journals. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and B.S. in Physics from Nanjing University. He has received several awards, including: Division of Inorganic Chemistry Yong Investigator Award (American Chemical Society, 2011), Gold Medal of Graduate Student Award (Material Research Society, 2010).
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Focused on parallel and distributed computing
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA, TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Series: EE598 Seminar Course
Abstract: Weekly seminars given by researchers in academia and industry including senior doctoral students in EE, CS and ISI covering current research related to parallel and distributed computation including parallel algorithms, high performance computing, scientific computation, application specific architectures, multi-core and many-core architectures and algorithms, application acceleration, reconfigurable computing systems, data intensive systems, Big Data and cloud computing.
Biography: Prerequisite: Students are expected to be familiar with basic concepts at the level of graduate level courses in Computer Engineering and Computer Science in some of these topic areas above. Ph.D. students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Computer Science can automatically enroll. M.S. students can enroll only with permission of the instructor. To request permission send a brief mail to the instructor in text format with the subject field ââ¬ÅEE 598ââ¬Â. The body of the mail (in text format) should include name, degree objective, courses taken at USC and grades obtained, prior educational background, and relevant research background, if any.
Requirements for CR:
1. Attending at least 10 seminars during the semester
There will be a sign-in sheet and a sign-out sheet at every seminar. All students must sign-in (before 2:00pm) and sign-out (after 3:00pm). The sign-in sheet will not be available after 2:00pm, and the sign-out sheet will not be available before 3:00pm.
2. Submitting a written report for at least 5 seminars
The written report for each seminar must be 1-page single line spaced format with font size of 12 (Times) or 11 (Arial) without any figures, tables, or graphs. The report must be submitted no later than 1 week after the corresponding seminar, and must be handed only to the instructor either on the seminar times or during office hours. Late reports will not be considered.
The report must summarize studentââ¬â¢s own understanding of the seminar, and should contain the following:
- Your name and submission date [1 line]
- Title of the seminar, name of the speaker, and seminar date [1 line]
- Background of the work (e.g., applications, prior research, etc.) [1 paragraph]
- Highlights of the approaches presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Main results presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Conclusion (your own conclusion and not what was given by the speaker) [1 paragraph]
Reviewing papers related to the topic of the seminar, and incorporating relevant findings in the
reports (e.g., in the conclusion section) is encouraged. In such cases, make sure to clearly indicate
the reference(s) used to derive these conclusions.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
More Information: Course Announcement_EE598_Focused on parallel and distributed computing_(Spring 2013).pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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Predictive Modeling of Patient State and Therapy Optimization
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Zoran Obradovic, Director, Data Analytics and Biomedical Informatics Center, Professor, Computer and Information Sciences Department, Professor, Statistics Department, Fox School of Business (secondary appointment), Temple University
Talk Title: Predictive Modeling of Patient State and Therapy Optimization
Series: EE598 Seminar Course
Abstract: This talk will discuss the results of our ongoing DARPA DLT project aimed to develop and validate effective predictive modeling technology to achieve the following sepsis treatment related aims for acute inflammation on high dimensional and noisy data at a clinically relevant scale: (1) Personalized sepsis therapy optimization for an individual patientââ¬â¢s state improvement; (2) Early diagnosis of sepsis and accurate detection of change in the state of sepsis, and (3): Gene expression analysis for sepsis biomarkers identification. These aims are addressed by developing advanced methods for analysis of temporal dependencies in high dimensional multi-source sepsis related data, which show significant mortality reduction in severe sepsis patients.
This is joint research with Mohamed Ghalwash, Qiang Lou, Vladan Radosavljevic, Dusan Ramljak and Kosta Ristovski.
Biography: Zoran Obradovicââ¬â¢s research interests include data mining, machine learning and complex networks applications in climate modeling and health management. He is the executive editor at the journal on Statistical Analysis and Data Mining, which is the official publication of the American Statistical Association and is an editorial board member at eleven journals. He is general co-chair for 2013 and 2014 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining and was the program or track chair at many data mining and biomedical informatics conference. His data analytics work is published in more than 260 articles and is cited more than 10,000 times (H-index 41 and I10-index 86). For more details see http://www.dabi.temple.edu/~zoran/.
Host: Professor Cauligi S. Raghavendra
More Information: Course Announcement_EE598_Focused on parallel and distributed computing_(Spring 2013) 2.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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CS Colloquium Series Lecture: Greg ver Steeg (ISI): Detecting Influence in Social Networks
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Greg ver Steeg, Information Sciences Institute (ISI)
Talk Title: Detecting Influence in Social Networks
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Current tests for contagion in social network studies are flawed due to the confounding effects of latent homophily (i.e., ties form preferentially between individuals with similar hidden traits). We demonstrate a general method to lower bound the strength of causal effects in observational social network studies, even in the presence of arbitrary, unobserved individual traits. Our test requires no parametric assumptions and is based on connections with algebraic geometry and Bell inequalities in quantum physics. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by correctly deducing the causal effects for examples previously shown to expose defects in existing methodology. Finally, we discuss preliminary results on data taken from the Framingham Heart Study showing that the spread of obesity cannot be explained by latent homophily.
I will also give a brief summary of other recent and ongoing research. One goal is to construct an information-theoretic foundation for unsupervised learning with preliminary success in discovering predictable relationships in social networks based only on content dynamics. Other topics include the statistical physics of networks and solving machine learning problems with quantum annealing.
Biography: Greg Ver Steeg is a computer scientist at USC's Information Sciences Institute. Ver Steeg received his PhD in physics from Caltech in 2009 for research in quantum information theory. His research has explored a diverse set of connections between computer science and physics dealing with machine learning, information theory, causal inference, and information processing. He is the recent winner of an AFOSR Young Investigator Award.
Host: CS Colloquium Series Lecture
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Informational Limits of Systems with Humans and Machines
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lav R. Varshney, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
Talk Title: Informational Limits of Systems with Humans and Machines
Abstract: New communication and computing technologies are enabling people to come together to achieve higher quality of life and to develop innovative products and services. The down-to-earth problem of building these informational systems, however, is entangled with theoretical questions of what is possible and what is impossible when bringing together ubiquitous informational technologies with the people and organizations they are transforming. Group decision-making, information factories, and crowdsourcing are all ways of structuring systems to draw on the strengths of many, allowing collective intelligence rather than cacophony to emerge.
In this talk, I will discuss a mathematical model of human decision-making and show the benefits of diversity in groups. Next I will present a model of crowdsourcing with strategic players, and further show empirical evidence from a large-scale system we built that indicates the importance of drawing human attention. A thermodynamic interpretation leads us to ask: is there a Carnot limit for knowledge work? In closing, I discuss how fundamental limits on the transmission of information provide insight into systems with humans and machines.
Biography: Lav Varshney is a research scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, where his current research focuses on sociotechnical systems, computational creativity, statistical signal processing, information and coding theory, and data analytics. He received the B. S. degree with honors in electrical and computer engineering (magna cum laude) from Cornell University. He received the S. M., E. E., and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He held an NSF fellowship at MIT, and his masterââ¬â¢s thesis was awarded the E. A. Guillemin Thesis Award for best electrical engineering thesis and his doctoral thesis received the J.-A. Kong Award Honorable Mention for best electrical engineering thesis. He has also received a best paper award at the 2012 SRII Global Conference, and best student paper awards at the 2006 IEEE Data Compression Conference, the 2004 IEEE Conference on the History of Electronics, and the 2003 IEEE Radar Conference. He has received an IBM eminence and excellence award for his work on crowdsourcing and has been named a Forward Thinker by IBM for his work on culinary computational creativity.
Host: Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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Spring Startup Equinox
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 07:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Receptions & Special Events
Want a chance to network with other students who have awesome ideas?? Check out Startup Equinox! You'll hear awesome pitches from your very own peers, and have time to talk with them about their ideas afterwards.
Make sure to register for this bi-annual event here: startupequinox.com/register
Schedule of Events:
7-7:30 Doors Open
7:30-8 Event Kickoff and Keynote
8-8:45 Fast Pitches
8:45-9 Featured Presentations
9:10-10 General Networking
10-11:59 Doors Close/TraddiesLocation: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Ballroom
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: USC NOBE
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USC Graduate Engineering Information Session in Germany(Munich)
Thu, Apr 04, 2013 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Please join us for a Graduate Engineering Information Session hosted by Kelly Goulis, Senior Associate Dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in Munich.
All students who have earned or are completing a Bachelor's degree in engineering, math or science are welcome to attend to learn more about graduate engineering programs at USC. Participants will also receive official brochures and handout information from USC.
Event will begin at 19:00 (CET-Munich time) and will take place at the
Eden Hotel Wolff
Arnulfstraße 4
D-80335 Munich
Refreshments will be served. RSVP requestedAudiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Graduate & Professional Programs
