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Events for April 10, 2009

  • Preview USC - Admitted Students Only

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    This half-day program includes an information session about housing, campus life and the transition to college, a tour of campus and special activities with the Viterbi School including facility tours and meeting Administrators and several of our current students. There are six Preview USC sessions throughout April.Reserve a space for Preview USC online at http://usc.edu/experienceusc/ if you cannot make one of our Explore USC programs.

    Location: USC Main Campus

    Audiences: Admitted Freshmen & Family Members

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Recent Advances in Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Fat - Applications in the Study of Obesity

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    SPEAKER: Dr. H. Harry Hu, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Southern CaliforniaABSTRACT: Overweight and obesity, particularly in adolescents, is a growing health problem in the U.S. and worldwide. Fat accumulations in the abdomen, organs, and muscles have been linked to a variety of metabolic
    and cardiovascular diseases. Fat deposition is a recognized biomarker for obesity risk stratification. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is potentially the most optimal modality for rapid, accurate, and non-invasive
    quantification of fat deposition within the human body. MRI is inherently three dimensional, provides sensitive chemical-shift based mechanisms for differentiating fat and lean tissues in organs and across the
    abdomen, and allows indefinite repeatability in patients due to the lack of ionizing radiation. This talk will introduce some of the most recent advances in fat-water MRI technology. It will highlight the principles and
    algorithms that underline current MRI fat-water image reconstruction, and discuss several technical considerations that are needed to ensure accurate fat quantification. The presentation will also summarize recent applications of fat-water MRI techniques to measure absolute fat mass, percent fat infiltration in organs such as the liver and pancreas, and the ability to identify different types of fat tissues.BIO: H. Harry Hu received a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering (BME) from USC in 2001. He then went on to study medical physics and magnetic resonance imaging at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in 2006. His doctoral thesis focused on rapid data acquisition strategies and the study of intracranial and whole-body angiography. Since late 2006, he has been a postdoctoral research associate and a member of the Magnetic Resonance Engineering Laboratory at USC, and
    has been under the mentorship of Dr. Krishna S. Nayak. Harry's current research focuses on rapid quantitative fat-water MRI in studies of obesity and metabolism, which involves collaboration with colleagues from USC's
    Keck School of Medicine and the University of Alabama, Birmingham. His work has resulted in multiple conference presentations, eight first-author manuscripts, and one U.S. patent. Harry is also a co-author on
    more than twelve articles in journals including Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Radiology. He was the recipient of USC's Fred S. Grodin Award in BME in 2001. HOST: Professor Krishna Nayak, knayak@usc.edu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

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  • On the Efficiency of Random Access Scheduling for Wireless Multi-Hop Networks

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Apoorva Jindal, USCAbstract: We formally establish that random access scheduling with carrier sense yields exceptionally good performance in the context of wireless multi-hop networks. A common misconception is that existing random access schemes, like CSMA-CA, yield unfair and inefficient rates in these networks. This misconception is based on works which study CSMA-CA scheduled multi-hop networks either with TCP or in saturation conditions both of which grossly underutilize the available capacity that CSMA-CA provides, or use topologies which cannot occur in practice due to physical layer limitations.To formally establish our thesis, we derive worst case performance bounds on CSMA-CA scheduling in multi-hop networks. We first derive a methodology to characterize the capacity region for any CSMA-CA-scheduled multi-hop network, thus addressing a long standing fundamental open problem in the research community. We then use this characterization to compare the max-min rate allocation achieved by CSMA-CA and optimal scheduling, and find that: (i) in any realistic topology with geometric constraints due to the physical layer, CSMA-CA is never worse than 30% of the optimal, and (ii) in typical topologies, CSMA-CA attains more than 55% of the optimal throughput. Considering that the state-of-the-art distributed collision-free approximations to optimal scheduling achieve lower worst case bounds than the above, CSMA-CA is surprisingly efficient. To ensure that this good performance is achievable with a distributed rate controller, we design and implement two rate control schemes, WCP and WCP-CAP, which achieve close to optimal performance.Biography: Apoorva Jindal is currently with the Networked Systems Performance and Design Lab at University of Southern California. He received his B.Tech degree in EE from IIT Kanpur in 2002, and then received his PhD degree in EE from USC in January 2009. His research primarily focusses on protocol design, implementation and performance analysis for wireless networks. The research he has been involved with during his thesis has received grants from NSF and Cisco as well as the "Best and Most Compelling Presentation and Demonstration Award" at the networking workshop "Future of TCP: Train-wreck or Evolution" held at the Stanford University and sponsored by Cisco systems. He has been a recipient of the Best Graduate Teaching Assistant award from the Electrical Engineering Department at USC and the best undergraduate research project award at IIT Kanpur from Tata Consultancy Services.Host: Michael Neely, mjneely@usc.edu, EEB 520, x03505

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium: Think Faster, Focus Better, and Remember More

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Lecture offered by Dr. Michael M. Merzenich, Professor Emeritus, Co-Director of the Coleman Memorial Laboratory, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Posit Science Corporation

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Admission & Student Affairs

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium: Think Faster, Focus Better, & Remember More

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Dr. Michael M. Merzenich, Professor Emeritus, Co-Director of the Coleman Memorial Laboratory, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Posit Science Corporation offers a lecture entitled Think Faster, Focus Better, and Remember More: Rewiring Our Brain to Stay Younger.

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs

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  • An Air Quality Engineer in Industry

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars



    Patricia G Menjivar, LEED AP, Sr. EHS Engineer, Air QualityAbstract:
    California's air pollution control program is one of the most effective in the world. California legislature is continuously in the forefront of newly created air quality regulations that affect not just California but the Nation. Industry in California must keep abreast of newly created regulations, such as AB32. Despite these improvements, California continues to face the nation's greatest air quality challenge. An Air Quality Engineer must work these challenges with Industry for efficient and feasible outcomes while keeping the mission to find and support alternatives or reduce hazards in order to protect the environment and its citizens. Ms. Patricia Menjivar will talk about her experiences as a Senior Air Quality Engineer. 310.334.7388 Business
    310.628.2607 Cell
    Patricia_G_Menjivar@Raytheon.com

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Integrated Sys Seminar - Pushing CMOS to the Limits (Prof. Ali Niknejad, UCB)

    Fri, Apr 10, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker - Prof. Ali Niknejad (UCB)Abstract :Silicon CMOS technology scaling has resulted in fast, tiny, and cheap transistors which are used as building blocks in digital, analog, and increasingly RF and video electronic devices. As the scaling continues, will the performance of analog/RF integrated circuits continue to suffer due to dynamic range limitations? Are there new opportunities or new design paradigms that can be used to overcome the limitations of CMOS? The first part of the talk will review some technological limitations related to noise, distortion, dynamic range, and speed. Performance limitations from a device and technology perspective account for only part of the story. The second part of the talk will highlight circuit design examples that overcome these limitations, allowing operation at record speeds over 100 GHz, relatively high power levels, and high linearity despite using low supply voltages and “digitalâ€ï¿½ transistor technology.

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

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