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Events for May 14, 2012
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering TalkMon, May 14, 2012
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. 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 visit https://esdweb.esd.usc.edu/unresrsvp/MeetUSC.aspx to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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SAP TERP 10 Student Certification Academy
Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 08:30 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Richard Vawter, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Talk Title: SAP TERP 10 Student Certification Academy
Abstract: The University of Southern California, being an active member of SAPâs Global University Alliances program since its inception in 1996, has been chosen to offer the TERP10 Academy to its students in early Summer 2012. The TERP10 Academy, and its certification, is a direct response to the global forecast of needed SAP skills in the market, estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000, in the next several years.
Students completing the TERP10 Academy and passing SAPâs certification exam will have the advantage of being equipped with a good understanding of business processes adopted by companies around the world. They will also get insights into best business practices and how SAP can be used to optimize business processes. Students will find that the TERP10 Certification will open internship opportunities as well as full time jobs with consulting firms such as Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG, Hitachi, and other SAP partner companies.
There will be two offerings of the SAP TERP10 Student Certification Academy in 2012. Both offerings will run for 9 full days, with the the certification examination to be given on the morning of the 10th day.
Biography: Although Prof. Richard Vawter hasn't flown for over a decade, he's had plenty of experience in the cockpitâespecially as a college student! His undergraduate degrees at both Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona and UCLA were accomplished by literally flying between classes.
Upon completing his Engineering degree at UCLA, Richard Vawter started work at Rockwell International analyzing the dynamic loads placed upon the Space Shuttle during the launch and entry phases of a mission. After the Challenger incident, Richard Vawter was chosen to be part of NASAâs Crew Egress Team and assigned the task to design a system and method for the crew to escape the shuttle during a controlled emergency descent.
Following the resumption of the Space Shuttle flights, Prof. Vawter began taking graduate classes at the School of Engineering. After only one graduate class, Prof. Vawter became hooked on USC, completing Masters degrees in both Aerospace Engineering and Business Administration. After two years as a computer consultant, Prof. Vawter returned to USC and worked for the Marshall School of Business as a Computer Systems and Applications Specialist. During that time, he had the opportunity to fill in for a week teaching an ITP class and discovered his teaching talents when the students started clamoring for him to come back. Prof. Vawter began teaching officially at ITP in 1996 and currently focuses on SAP.
Host: Corporate and Professional Programs
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/TERP10.htm
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/TERP10.htm
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Inferring Speaker Affect in Spoken Natural Language Communication
Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Heather Pon-Barry, Harvard University
Talk Title: Inferring Speaker Affect in Spoken Natural Language Communication
Abstract: Speech interfaces are now abundant in our everyday lives. Yet, the experience of talking to a dialogue system or posing queries to a smartphone is not as natural or as efficient as conversing with another human. In this talk, I will present my work, at the intersection of spoken language processing and adaptive intelligent systems, that is aimed at making spoken language communication more natural and efficient. Intelligent speech-enabled systems must move beyond recognizing the words that a person is saying; they must also listen to the personâs manner of speaking and detect any emotions or affective signals that are conveyed. As a concrete example, I will address the problem of inferring a speakerâs level of certainty using prosodic information (intonation, rhythm, and energy) from the speech signal. I will present a technique for computing prosodic features from utterance segments that both improves level of certainty classification and can be used to determine the cause of uncertainty. These models are able to accurately classify speaker certainty 75% of the time. I will also discuss a novel method for eliciting affective speech. This method binds the speakerâs uncertainty to a single phrase within the larger utterance, allowing for the comparison of contextually-based feature sets. This work has applications in a wide range of speech-enabled systems, including tutorial dialogue systems, language-learning tools, and voice search applications.
Biography: Heather Pon-Barry is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Harvard University. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University. Her research interests include spoken language processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive science. She is the recipient of NSF and NDSEG graduate research fellowships.
Host: Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Felipe de Barros, Department of Geotechnical Engineering and Geosciences,Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona (Spain)
Talk Title: A health risk-driven approach for hydrogeological site characterization
Abstract: Obtaining accurate predictions of human health risks from groundwater contamination is a challenge. The main difficulty relies on the fact that many of the components that constitute human health risk assessment are uncertain and requires interdisciplinary knowledge. Amongst these, we highlight two classes of parameters: (1) hydrogeological and (2) health-related. Usually, sampling strategies are developed with the goal of reducing uncertainty, but less often they are developed in the context of their impacts on uncertainty. Understanding the impact from each of these components in human health risk can provide guidance for decision makers to best allocate resources towards minimal prediction uncertainty. One of the key points in risk management consists of knowing where to invest characterization efforts in a cost-effective manner. In this talk, a multi-component health risk-based framework is presented which allows decision makers to set priorities through a visualization tool. Results highlight the role of characteristic length-scales characterizing flow and transport in determining data needs within an integrated hydrogeological-health framework. We illustrate conditions where uncertainty reduction in human health risk may benefit from better understanding of the health component as opposed to a more detailed hydrogeological characterization. Through a series of examples, we show how fundamental knowledge on the main physical mechanisms affecting pollutant and solute pathways are necessary to understand the response of complex systems to varying drivers.
Host: Astani CEE Department
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cassie Cremeans
