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Events for April 08, 2016
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Emerging Innovations in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 09:00 AM - 06:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: various, various
Talk Title: various
Abstract: 9-9:25 a.m. Registration
9:25-9:30 a.m. Opening remarks
9:30-10:15 a.m. Olivier Cinquin (UC Irvine) -“ Making sense of regulatory network complexity: Design principles of a self-renewing organ
10:15-11 a.m. Bing Ren (UCSD) -“ Large-scale functional characterization of regulatory sequences in the stem cell genome
11:10-11:30 a.m. Joanna Salva (T32 trainee) -“ A noncanonical, nuclear role for Fibroblast Growth Factor signaling
11:30-11:50 a.m. Ingrid Lua (T32 trainee) -“ Mesothelial cells: Mesenchymal progenitor cells in development, injury and regeneration
noon-1 p.m. Lunch
1-1:45 p.m. William Greenleaf (Stanford) -“ Principles of regulatory variation revealed by single-cell ATAC-seq
1:45-2:30 p.m. Kevan Shokat (UCSF) -“ Non-traditional strategies for drugging traditional targets
2:30-3 p.m. Coffee break
3-3:20 p.m. Kimberley Babos (Graduate student) -“ Robust direct reprogramming generates induced motor neurons that recapitulate ALS disease phenotypes in vitro
3:20-3:40 p.m. Hironori Hojo (Postdoc) -“ Sp7/Osterix is restricted to bone-forming vertebrates where it acts as a Dlx co-factor in osteoblast specification
3:40-4 p.m. Cambrian Liu (Postdoc) -“ Tissue morphogenesis and clonal selection during repair of colonic epithelium
4-4:45 p.m. Helen Blau (Stanford) -“ The fountain of youth: Muscle stem cell rejuvenation strategies
5-6:30 p.m. Poster presentation
Sponsored by Amgen, TaKaRa and Clontech
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: https://calendar.usc.edu/event/emerging_innovations_in_developmental_and_stem_cell_biology?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=USC+Event+Calendar%3A+Beta#.VwQFo3DFl04
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
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PhD Defense - Thanh Nguyen
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Combating Adversaries under Uncertainties in Real-world Security Problems: Advanced Game-theoretic Behavioral Models and Robust Algorithms
Location: EEB 248
Date: April 8th
Time: 10am-12pm
Phd Candidate: Thanh Nguyen
Committee members:
Prof. Milind Tambe (Chair)
Prof. David Kempe
Prof. Jonathan Gratch
Prof. William Halfond
Prof. Richard John
Prof. Ariel Procaccia
Abstract:
Security is a global concern. Real-world security problems range from domains such as the protection of ports and airports from terrorists to protecting forests and wildlife from smugglers and poachers. A key challenge in solving these security problems is that security resources are limited; not all targets can be protected all the time. Therefore, security resources must be deployed intelligently, taking into account responses of attackers and potential uncertainties over their types, preference, and knowledge. Stackelberg Security Games (SSG) have drawn a significant amount of interest from security agencies. SSG-based decision aids are in widespread use for the protection of assets such as major ports in the US and airport terminals.
My research focuses on addressing uncertainties in SSGs --- one recognized area of weakness in SSGs. For example, adversary payoff values can be extremely difficult to assess and are generally characterized by significant uncertainty. My thesis provides innovative techniques and significant advances in addressing these uncertainties in SSGs. First, in many security problems, human adversaries are known to be boundedly rational, and often choose targets with non-highest expected value to attack. I introduce novel behavioral models of adversaries which significantly advance the state-of-the-art models in capturing the adversaries' decision making. More specifically, my new model for predicting poachers'behavior in wildlife protection is the first game-theoretic model which takes into account key domain challenges including the imperfect poaching data and complex temporal dependencies in the poachers' behavior. The superiority of my new models over the existing ones is demonstrated via extensive experiments based on the biggest real-world poaching dataset collected in a national park in Uganda over 12 years. Second, my research also focuses on developing new robust algorithms which address uncertainties in real-world security problems. I present the first unified maximin-based robust algorithm - a single algorithm -to handle all different types of uncertainties explored in SSGs. Furthermore, I propose a less conservative decision criterion; minimax regret for generating new, candidate defensive strategies that handle uncertainties in SSGs. In fact, this is the first time minimax regret has ever been used for addressing uncertainties in SSGs. I then present novel robust algorithms to compute minimax regret for addressing payoff uncertainty.
A contribution of particular significance is that my work is deployed in the real-world; I have deployed my robust algorithms and behavioral models for the PAWS system, which is currently being used by NGOs (Panthera and Rimba) in a conservation area in Malaysia.
Location: 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
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AI Seminar-Prominent features of rumors in social networks
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Meeyoung Cha , KAIST
Talk Title: Prominent features of rumors in social networks
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: *This is the First of 2 AI Seminar Talks on FRI. 4/8
Social psychology literature defines a rumor as a story in general circulation without confirmation or certainty to facts. Rumors arise in the context of ambiguity, when the meaning of a situation is not readily apparent or when people feel an acute need for
Security. Rumors hence are a powerful, pervasive, and persistent force affecting people and groups. This talk will introduce efforts on identifying rumors using massive data in social media. I will discuss the distinct patterns we observed from rumor diffusions in terms of the following aspects: temporal, structural, and linguistic.
(Published at IEEE 13th International Conference on Data Mining Conference 2013, Joint work with Sejeong Kwon, Kyomin Jung, Wei Chen, Yajun Wang)
Biography: Meeyoung Cha is an associate professor at Graduate School of Culture Technology in KAIST and currently a Visiting Professor at Facebook. Her research interests are in the analysis of large-scale online social networks with emphasis the spread of information, moods, and user influence. She received the best paper awards at ACM IMC 2007 for analyzing long-tail videos in YouTube and at ICWSM 2012 for studying social conventions in Twitter. Her research has been published in leading journals and conferences including PLoS One, Information Sciences, WWW, and ICWSM, and has been featured at the popular media outlets including the New York Times websites, Harvard Business Review's research blog, the Washington Post, the New Scientist.
Host: Emilio Ferrara
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=270f829804634fd8b615e50d00f243e41dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=270f829804634fd8b615e50d00f243e41d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program Colloquium
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
University Calendar
Join us for a presentation by Farbod Shoraka, from Bloom Nation, titled "Bootstrapping a Technical Startup."
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ramon Borunda/Academic Services
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PhD Defense - Fei Fang
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Title: Towards Addressing Spatio-Temporal Aspects in Security Games
PhD Candidate: Fei Fang
Committee members: Milind Tambe (advisor), Leana Golubchik, Jelena Mirkovic, Suvrajeet Sen, Shaddin Dughmi
Location: RTH 526
Time: April 8, 1pm-3pm
Abstract:
Game theory has been successfully used to handle complex resource allocation and patrolling problems in security and sustainability domains. More specifically, real-world applications have been deployed for different domains based on the framework of ``security games'', where the defender (e.g., security agency) has a limited number of resources to protect a set of targets from an adversary (e.g., criminal, terrorist). Whereas the first generation of security games research provided algorithms for optimizing security resources in mostly static settings, my thesis advances the state-of-the-art to a new generation of security games, handling massive games with complex spatio-temporal settings and leading to real-world applications that have fundamentally altered current practices of security resource allocation. My thesis provides the first algorithms and models for advancing key aspects of spatio-temporal challenges in security games, including (i) continuous time; (ii) continuous space; (iii) frequent and repeated attacks; (iv) complex spatial constraints.
First, focusing on games where actions are taken over continuous time (for example games with moving targets such as ferries and refugee supply lines), I propose a new game model that accurately models the continuous strategy space for the attacker and provide an efficient solution that uses compact representation for both the defender and the attacker's strategy space. Second, for games where actions are taken over continuous space (for example games with forest land as a target), I provide an algorithm computing the optimal distribution of patrol effort. Third, my work addresses challenges with one key dimension of complexity -- frequent and repeated attacks. Motivated by the repeated interaction of players in domains such as preventing poaching and illegal fishing, I introduce a novel game model that deals with frequent and repeated attacks and provide algorithms to plan effective sequential defender strategies. Furthermore, I handle complex spatial constraints that arise from the problem of designing optimal patrol strategy given complex topographical information.
My thesis work has led to two applications which have been deployed in the real world and have fundamentally altered previously used tactics, including one used by the US Coast Guard for protecting the Staten Island Ferry in New York City in past few years and another deployed in a protected area in Southeast Asia to combat illegal poaching.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
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NL Seminar-Learning Distributed Representations from Network Data and Human Navigation
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hao Wu, USC/ISI
Talk Title: Learning Distributed Representations from Network Data and Human Navigation
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: The increasing growth of network data such as linked documents on the Web and social networks, has imposed great challenges on automatic data analysis. We study the problem of learning representations of network data, which is of critical for applications including data classification, ranking and link prediction. We present neural network embedding algorithms to learn distributed representations of network data that capture the deep context of each data point, and human cognition in navigation data. To improve the scalability of our algorithms, we use efficient optimization and sampling methods.
Biography: Hao Wu is a PhD student at USC/ISI, advised by Kristina Lerman.
Host: Xing Shi and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, Apr 08, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Luis Montoya and Farimah Shirmohammadi, CEE Ph.D. Candidates
Abstract: TBA
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
