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Events for May 01, 2015
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Center for Engineering Diversity Industry Advisory Board Meeting
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 09:30 AM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Quarterly meeting of Center for Engineering Diversity industry partners.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Industry Advisory Board members
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity
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AI Seminar-Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xiaoran Yan , USC/ISI
Talk Title: Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: The interplay between a dynamic process and topology of a network on which it unfolds affects observed network structure. In this talk, we examine the impact of this the interaction on the identification of central nodes and communities in networks. We introduce the generalized Laplacian framework which extends the traditional Laplacian beyond simple diffusion. By mathematically relating dynamic processes to random walks on a transformed network, the generalized Laplacian formulation unifies different measures of centrality and community quality. Thus, a node's centrality describes its participation in the dynamics taking place on the network, and communities are groups of nodes that interact more frequently with each other according to the rules of the dynamic process. We prove that the classic Cheeger's inequality, which relates the spectrum of the Laplacian matrix to the conductance of the best cluster in the network, can be extended to this generalized setting, providing a method for fast graph partitioning under any dynamics. We demonstrate empirically that different dynamic processes lead to divergent views of structure of synthetic and real-world networks.
Biography: Xiaoran Yan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Kristina Lerman's group at ISI-USC. His work focuses on modelling and analyzing dynamics on networks as well as the underlying topological structures. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science at University of New Mexico.
Host: Kristina Lerman
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr. Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
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Center for Engineering Diversity Faculty Advisory Board Meeting
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Quarterly meeting of Viterbi faculty members who provide guidance and support to The Center for Engineering Diversity.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Faculty Advisory Board Members
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity
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CS Colloquium: Ari Shapiro (ICT) - Models of Motion, Movement and Interaction for Digital Characters
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ari Shapiro, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Talk Title: Models of Motion, Movement and Interaction for Digital Characters
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Research in animation has progressed where capture technologies have allowed recording and playback of human motion. For example, a human face can be recorded speaking an utterance, then accurately modeled in 3D. However, making the 3D face produce an utterance that has not previously been recorded requires an understanding of how the face reacts to the speech that is generated, how the head and neck must move to accommodate that sound as well as that expression, and how the other parts of the face and eyes act during the speech. Similarly, motion capture techniques allow the capture and replication of human walking or running as performed by the original actor, but arbitrary movement through uneven terrain with obstacles cannot be synthesized accurately, since the complexity of the human balance and structure is not accurately modeled using only kinematic points in space over time.
Thus, while motion replication into a 3D environment is fairly well understood across a number of areas, the fundamental question of how to synthesize movement through a controllable model of humans remains elusive. The human body is extremely complex, and models of movement for high energy activities such as running differ greatly from other complex phenomena such as talking or gesturing. Thus, while it is possible to replicate a recorded motion, generating a controllable model of movement for a virtual human remains an open research problem for many different areas, ranging from facial expression to speech to gross movement. In addition, the motivations for human movement and motion are often driven by cognitive functions, so a better understanding of human movement requires a similar understanding of the cognitive aspects that motivate it.
In this talk, I will describe my research in generating various controllable models of motion and movement for animated 3D characters. My objective is to better understand how people physically move, interact and respond to people and objects in their environment By better understanding how people move about and the motivations for doing so, we can create models of human movement and behavior that can be controlled within a virtual or digital space, thus enabling convincing virtual characters that can be used for various types of training and simulation. The embodiment of movement and behavior of a person into a controllable, digital model allows for the creation of complicated scenarios that can be effective substitutes and training environments for real-world experiences.
The lecture will be available to stream HERE. (Right Click, New Tab for optimal results.)
Biography: Ari Shapiro currently works as a Research Scientist at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, where his focus is on synthesizing realistic animation for virtual characters as lead of the Character Animation and Simulation research group. Shapiro has published many academic articles in the field of computer graphics and animation for virtual characters, and is a seven-time SIGGRAPH speaker.
For several years, he worked on character animation tools and algorithms in the research and development departments of visual effects and video games companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, LucasArts and Rhythm and Hues Studios. He has worked on many feature-length films, and holds film credits in The Incredible Hulk and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. In addition, he holds video games credits in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series.
He completed his Ph.D. in computer science at UCLA in 2007 in the field of computer graphics with a dissertation on character animation using motion capture, physics and machine learning. He also holds an M.S. in computer science from UCLA, and a B.A. in computer science from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Host: CS Department
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/577232541Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 108
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/577232541
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Senior Design Expo
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Viterbi seniors will be presenting their capstone course projects to a judging panel of faculty, staff, and industry partners, with winners receiving cash prizes. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors can learn what types of projects they will work on and vote for their favorite, as well as see how their current classes can be applied to future engineering projects.
More information: bit.ly/seniordesignexpoLocation: Epstein Family Engineering Plaza (Engineering Quad)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Christine D'Arcy
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PhD Defense - Matthew Brown
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 02:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Candidate: Matthew Brown
Committee:
Milind Tambe (Chair)
Jonathan Gratch
Ewa Deelman
Richard John
Dale Kiefer
Title: Balancing Tradeoffs in Security Games: Handling Defenders and Adversaries with Multiple Objectives
Abstract:
Stackelberg security games (SSG) have received a significant amount of attention in the literature for modeling the strategic interactions between a defender and an adversary, in which the defender has a limited amount of security resources to protect a set of targets from a potential attack by the adversary. SSGs are at the heart of several significant decision-support applications deployed in real world security domains. All of these applications rely on standard assumptions made in SSGs, including that the defender and the adversary each have a single objective which is to maximize their expected utility. Given the successes and real world impact of previous SSG research, there is a natural desire to push towards increasingly complex security domains, leading to a point where considering only a single objective is no longer appropriate.
My thesis focuses on incorporating multiple objectives into SSGs. With multiple conflicting objectives for either the defender or adversary, there is no one solution which maximizes all objectives simultaneously and tradeoffs between the objectives must be made. Thus, my thesis provides two main contributions by addressing the research challenges raised by considering SSGs with (1) multiple defender objectives and (2) multiple adversary objectives. These contributions consist of approaches for modeling, calculating, and analyzing the tradeoffs between objectives in a variety of different settings. First, I consider multiple defender objectives resulting from diverse adversary threats where protecting against each type of threat is treated as a separate objective for the defender. Second, I investigate the defender's need to balance between the exploitation of collected data and the exploration of alternative strategies in patrolling domains. Third, I explore the necessary tradeoff between the efficacy and the efficiency of the defender's strategy in screening domains. Forth, I examine multiple adversary objectives for heterogeneous populations of boundedly rational adversaries that no longer strictly maximize expected utility.
The contributions of my thesis provide the novel game models and algorithmic techniques required to incorporate multiple objectives into SSGs. My research advances the state of the art in SSGs and opens up the model to new types of security domains that could not have been handled previously. As a result, I developed two applications for real world security domains that either have been or will be tested and evaluated in the field.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mahsa Moslehi and Charanraj Thimmisetty, Astani CEE Ph.D. Candidates
Talk Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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27th Annual Center for Engineering Diversity Banquet
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 05:30 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Annual celebration of graduating students and the accomplishments of The Minority Engineering Graduate Association, The National Society of Black Engineers, Queers in Engineering, Science and Technology, The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and The Society of Women Engineers.
RSVP required.Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Ballroom A
Audiences: Center for Engineering Diversity students
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity
