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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for June

  • Quantum Plasmonics

    Mon, Jun 03, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Mark Tame, Imperial College London

    Talk Title: Quantum Plasmonics

    Abstract: Quantum plasmonics is a rapidly growing field of research that involves the study of the quantum properties of light and its interaction with matter at the nanoscale. Here, surface plasmons - electromagnetic excitations coupled to electron charge density waves on metal-dielectric interfaces or localized on metallic nanostructures - enable the confinement of light to scales far below that of conventional optics. I will discuss recent progress in the experimental and theoretical investigation of the quantum properties of surface plasmons, their role in controlling light-matter interactions at the quantum level and potential applications in quantum information science.

    Biography: Dr Mark Tame is currently based at Imperial College London. He is a theorist and experimentalist in quantum optics and quantum information. His research is focused on developing nanophotonic systems for probing deeper into the foundations of quantum optics and building devices for applications in quantum information science. His current interests in this area lie in the emerging field of ‘quantum plasmonics’. He gained his PhD in quantum information from Queen’s University Belfast in 2007, where he pioneered the use of small entangled photonic systems (cluster states) for realising quantum computing protocols. He has held research fellowship positions at Osaka University, Queen’s University and most recently at Imperial College.

    Host: Todd Brun, x03503, tbrun@usc.edu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • NL Seminar- Dirk Hovy: "Learning Whom to Trust with MACE(NAACL Practice Talk)"

    Wed, Jun 05, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dirk Hovy, USC/ISI

    Talk Title: "Learning Whom to Trust with MACE(NAACL Practice Talk)"

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Non-expert annotation services like Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT) are cheap and fast ways to evaluate systems and provide categorical annotations for training data. Unfortunately, some annotators choose bad labels in order to maximize their pay. Manual identification is tedious, so we experiment with an item-response model. It learns in an unsupervised fashion to a) identify which annotators are trustworthy and b) predict the correct underlying labels. We match performance of more complex state-of-the-art systems and perform well even under adversarial conditions. We show considerable improvements over standard baselines, both for predicted label accuracy and trustworthiness estimates. We show that the latter can be further improved by introducing a prior on model parameters and using Variational Bayes inference. Additionally, we present a method for trading precision and recall, achieving even higher performance by focusing on the instances our model is most confident in. We provide an implementation of MACE (Multi- Annotator Competence Estimation) for download at(http://www.isi.edu/publications/licensed-sw/mace/).



    Biography: Dirk Hovy is a recent PhD graduate from USC's Information Sciences Institute, working with Jerry Hobbs and Ed Hovy. He has a background in socio-linguistics. His current work includes unsupervised and semi-supervised sequential models of relation extraction and WSD, as well as annotator assessment. He has also worked on temporal relations, metaphors, and prosody. A full list of his publications can be found at(http://www.dirkhovy.com/portfolio/papers/index.php). His other interests include cooking, picking up heavy things (and putting them back down), and medieval art and literature.

    Host: Qing Dou

    More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Marina Del Rey-11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

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  • CS Colloquium: Miryung Kim: Automation, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Systematic Software Changes

    Thu, Jun 06, 2013 @ 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Miryung Kim, University of Texas at Austin

    Talk Title: Automation, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Systematic Software Changes

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Software modifications are often systematic. Adding features and fixing bugs often require similar, but not identical, changes to many code locations. In this talk, I will present three research themes on how to support systematic changes during software evolution. First, I will present LASE, an approach that automates systematic edits by learning context-aware edit scripts from examples. It handles both issues of recommending change locations and applying context-aware customized transformation. Second, I will present a field study of refactoring benefits and challenges at Microsoft. It is widely believed that refactoring improves software quality and developer productivity. However, few empirical studies quantitatively assess refactoring benefits. Our analysis of Windows 7 version history finds that the binary modules refactored by a designated refactoring team experienced significant reduction in the number of inter-module dependencies and post-release defects, indicating a tangible benefit of refactoring. Finally, I will present refactoring reconstruction and advanced program differencing techniques that detect systematic changes from program versions to help developers during peer code reviews.

    Biography: Miryung Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin since 2009. She received her B.S. in Computer Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2001 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington under the supervision of Dr. David Notkin in 2003 and 2008 respectively. She received NSF CAREER award, Microsoft Software Engineering Innovation Foundation Award in 2011, and IBM Jazz Innovation Award in 2009. She also spent her time as a visiting researcher in the Research in Software Engineering (RiSE) group at Microsoft Research during the summer of 2011. She ranked No. 1 among all engineering and science students in KAIST in 2001 and received Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology Award, the highest honor given to an undergraduate student in Korea.

    Host: William Halfond

    Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • AI SEMINAR

    Fri, Jun 07, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Benjamin Snyder, Assistant Professor UW-Madison

    Talk Title: Dead Languages, and Elbow Grease: Minimally Supervised NLP Models.

    Series: AISeminar

    Abstract: I will discuss new techniques for inducing accurate statistical models for low resource languages. In the extreme case of language decipherment, we are presented with a text with no knowledge of the language or writing system, and our goal is to identify the phonetic properties of the characters. I will present a Bayesian model that predicts whether letters are consonants or vowels with over 99% accuracy across 503 languages. The model assumes that languages are grouped into latent clusters with shared phonotactic regularities. We perform posterior inference over the identity and shared parameters of these clusters.

    In a more common scenario, we are trying to build a model (e.g. for a low resource language) while minimizing our annotation effort. I will present a method based on matrix projections that allows us to quickly identify an optimal set of examples to label. This method outperforms active learning while obviating the need for incremental retraining and bootstrapping. We report error reductions of 25-40% on the tasks of pronunciation modeling and part-of-speech tagging.




    Biography: Benjamin Snyder is an assistant professor of computer science at UW-Madison. He completed his PhD at MIT in 2010, receiving the ACM Dissertation Award honorable mention and the George M. Sprowls Award for best PhD thesis in computer science at MIT. He will be visiting ISI For all of June.

    Host: David Chiang

    Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=ec818feeeb5b458e87121185990150ef1d

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th fl Large CR

    WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=ec818feeeb5b458e87121185990150ef1d

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Alma Nava / Information Sciences Institute

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  • NL Seminar- Malte Nuhn "Is Decipherment Difficult"

    Fri, Jun 07, 2013 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Malte Nuhn, Aachen University, Germany

    Talk Title: "Is Decipherment Difficult"

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Abstract: Is it possible to learn useful translations from large amounts of monolingual data to improve machine translation? The intuitive feeling is that learning a language without bilingual data is at least "more difficult than learning from example translations". In this talk, I will present recent results on decipherment: I will show that the decipherment problem is indeed difficult (NP-hard) and what approximations to the original problem can be made without hurting decipherment accuracy much.




    Biography: Bio: Having studied Physics and Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University, I'm currently a PhD student at Prof. Ney's Human Language Technology and Pattern Recognition Group in Aachen. I'm particularly interested in applying decipherment techniques to improve machine translation.

    Homepage:
    http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/~nuhn/

    Host: Kevin Knight and Qing Dou

    More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Marina Del Rey-11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Mon, Jun 10, 2013 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you�ve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE�s Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office� to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants � unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live � with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in SIx Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Tue, Jun 11, 2013 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you�ve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE�s Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office� to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants � unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live � with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in SIx Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Add to Google CalendarDownload ICS File for OutlookDownload iCal File
  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Wed, Jun 12, 2013 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you�ve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE�s Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office� to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants � unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live � with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in SIx Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Add to Google CalendarDownload ICS File for OutlookDownload iCal File
  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Thu, Jun 13, 2013 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you�ve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE�s Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office� to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants � unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live � with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in SIx Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Fri, Jun 14, 2013 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you�ve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE�s Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office� to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants � unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live � with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in SIx Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • AI Seminar- Adam Lopez

    Fri, Jun 14, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Adam Lopez, Johns Hopkins University

    Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar

    Abstract: A decade ago, students arrived at universities having been exposed to the idea of machine translation (MT) primarily through science fiction. Today, services like Google Translate have made it science fact. It is increasingly taught in courses and has its own textbook. But since it's a real application that isn't fully perfected, the best way to learn about it is still to build an MT system. Unfortunately, popular open-source toolkits for MT are mature codebases featuring tens of thousands of source code lines, making it difficult to focus on their core algorithms. Most tutorials present them as black boxes. But we want students to understand these algorithms, and black boxes are incompatible with this goal.

    As a centerpiece of our MT course, we challenged students to obtain the best performance on carefully constrained instances of four key MT problems, each corresponding to key problems in AI: alignment (unsupervised learning), decoding (search), evaluation, and reranking (supervised learning). We provided concise, fully-functioning, self-contained baseline components in less than 150 lines of python. Students brought a diverse arsenal of ideas to the problems, some novel. A surprising and exciting outcome was that student solutions or their combinations fared competitively on some tasks, suggesting that even novices could help improve the state-of-the-art on hard AI problems while simultaneously learning a great deal.

    Biography: Adam Lopez works on problems at the intersection of algorithms, machine learning, formal language theory, and computational linguistics with applications to problems in natural language processing, particularly machine translation. He is an assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins University. Previously he was a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. This summer he is a visiting scientist at SDL Research.

    Home Page:
    http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~alopez/

    Host: David Chiang

    Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=ea55185170054e13972a0ea5b932eb6c1d

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Marina Del Rey-6th Flr Conf Rm # 689

    WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=ea55185170054e13972a0ea5b932eb6c1d

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

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  • Ph.D. Defense: ALGORITHMS AND ARCHITECTURES FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE IP LOOKUP AND PACKET CLASSIFICATION ENGINES

    Wed, Jun 19, 2013 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Thilan Ganegedara, PhD Candidate, Electrical Engineering USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Talk Title: ALGORITHMS AND ARCHITECTURES FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE IP LOOKUP AND PACKET CLASSIFICATION ENGINES

    Abstract: : The Internet has become ubiquitous within the past few decades. The number of active users of the Internet has reached 2.5 billion and the number of Internet connected devices has reached 11 billion in year 2012. Considering this proliferation of Internet users and devices, forecasts show that the network traffic is expected to grow threefold between 2012 and 2017, which will result in a 1.4 Zettabytes of data exchange on the Internet in the year of 2017.

    These enormous amounts of traffic in the Internet demands high forwarding rates to satisfy the requirements of various time-critical applications. For example, multimedia applications such as video streaming, Voice over IP (VoIP) and gaming, require high bandwidth and low latency packet delivery. To meet such demands, network speeds have significantly increased since the inception of Internet; 10 Mbps to 100 Gbps rates within three decades. Such improvements in throughput are facilitated by the advancements of underlying forwarding algorithms and the processing platforms used for networking.

    The goal of this research is to harness the processing capabilities and memory capacities of current state-of-the-art networking platforms to devise wire-speed packet forwarding engines that are suitable for the future Internet. Even though the existing networking platforms possess the raw processing power and memory capacity, it is challenging to design packet forwarding engines that meet the performance demands of future networks. Designing high-performance packet forwarding engines requires a balance of both algorithmic and architectural aspects of the solution and the platform, respectively, which forms the basis for our research.

    In this research, we develop algorithms and architectures for 1) virtualized routers, 2) backbone IPv6 routers and 3) packet classification engines, which deliver high throughput while consuming low power on state-of-the-art networking platforms.

    Biography: Thilan Ganegedara is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His research interests include high-speed networking, hardware-software co-design, and reconfigurable computing. He earned his BSc degree in Electrical Engineering at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

    Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna (Chair)

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 110

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Janice Thompson

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  • CEE Oral Dissertation Defense

    Thu, Jun 20, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ramakrishna Tipireddy, CE Ph.D. Candidate

    Talk Title: Algorithms for stochastic Galerkin projections: Solvers, basis adaptation and multiscale modeling and reduction

    Abstract: This dissertation focuses on facilitating the analysis of probabilistic models for physical systems. To that end, novel contributions are made to various aspects of the problem, namely, 1) development of efficient algorithms for solving stochastic system of equations governing the physical problem, 2) stochastic basis adaptation methods to compute the solution in reduced stochastic dimensional space and 3) stochastic upscaling methods to find coarse-scale models from the fine-scale stochastic solutions. In particular, algorithms are developed for stochastic systems that are governed by partial differential equations (PDEs) with random coefficients. Polynomial chaos-based stochastic Galerkin and stochastic collocation methods are employed for solving these equations. Solvers and preconditioners based on Gauss-Seidel and Jacobi algorithms are explored for solving system of linear equations arising from stochastic Galerkin discretization of PDEs with random input data. Gauss-Seidel and Jacobi algorithms are formulated such that the existing software is leveraged in the computational effort. These algorithms are also used to develop preconditioners to Krylov iterative methods. These solvers and preconditioners are tested by solving a steady state diffusion equation and a steady state advection-diffusion equation. Upon discretization, the former PDE results in a symmetric positive definite matrix on left-hand-side, whereas the latter results in a non-symmetric positive definite matrix. The stochastic systems face significant computational challenge due the curse of dimensionality as the solution often lives in very high dimensional space. This challenge is addressed in the present work by recognizing the low dimensional structure of many quantities of interest (QoI) even in problems that have been embedded, via parameterization, in very high-dimensional settings. A new method for the characterization of subspaces associated with low-dimensional QoI is presented here. The probability density function of these QoI is found to be concentrated around one-dimensional subspaces for which projection operators are developed. This approach builds on the properties of Gaussian Hilbert spaces and associated tensor product spaces.

    For many physical problems, the solution lives in multiple scales, and it is important to capture the physics at all scales. To address this issue, a stochastic upscaling methodology is developed in which the above developed algorithms and basis adaptation methods are used. In particular upscaling methodology is demonstrated by developing a coarse scale stochastic porous medium model that replaces a fine-scale which consists of flow past fixed solid inclusions. The inclusions have stochastic spatially varying thermal conductivities and generate heat that is transported by the fluid. The permeability and conductivity of the effective porous medium are constructed as statistically dependent stochastic processes that are both explicitly dependent on the fine scale random conductivity.

    Another contribution of this thesis is development of a probabilistic framework for synthesizing high resolution micrographs from low resolution ones using a parametric texture model and a particle filter. Information contained in high resolution micrographs is relevant to the accurate prediction of microstructural behavior and the nucleation of instabilities. As these micrographs may be tedious and uneconomical to obtain over an extended spatial domain, A statistical approach is proposed for interpolating fine details over a whole computational domain starting with a low resolution prior and high resolution micrographs available only at a few spatial locations. As a first step, a small set of high resolution micrographs are decomposed into a set of multi-scale and multi-orientation subbands using a complex wavelet transform. Parameters of a texture model are computed as the joint statistics of the decomposed subbands. The synthesis algorithm then generates random micrographs satisfying the parameters of the texture model by recursively updating the gray level values of the pixels in the input micrograph. A density-based Monte Carlo filter is used at each step of the recursion to update the generated micrograph, using a low resolution micrograph at that location as a measurement. The process is continued until the synthesized micrograph has the same statistics as those from the high resolution micrographs. The proposed method combines a texture synthesis procedure with a particle filter and produces good quality high resolution micrographs.


    Host: Astani CEE Department

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Cassie Cremeans

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  • AI Seminar

    Fri, Jun 28, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Christian Shelton, CS Professor, UC Riverside

    Talk Title: Continuous-Time Models: Why and How

    Abstract: Discrete-time models are abundant in artificial intelligence: hidden
    Markov models, dynamic Bayesian networks, Markov decision processes,
    and (most) auto-regressive models assume time passes in discrete jumps.
    Yet, most processes modeled actually evolve in continuous time. This talk
    explores the problems inherent in this dichotomy, focusing on Markovian
    models.

    First, I will discuss the theoretic and experimental difficulties when
    modeling in discrete time. In doing so, I will present continuous-time
    Markov processes, drawing analogies to their discrete-time counterparts.
    Second, I will present the continuous-time analog of a dynamic Bayesian
    network: a continuous-time Bayesian network (CTBN). The talk will include
    an overview of the learning and inference literatures for CTBNs, showing
    how continuous-time aids in the development of efficient inference
    techniques. Finally, I will show some application results employing CTBNs
    on real data sets.

    Biography: Christian R. Shelton is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the
    University of California at Riverside. He has spent time as a visiting
    researcher at Intel Research and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. He was
    the Managing Editor of the Journal of Machine Learning Research and on
    the editorial board of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Artificial
    Intelligence Research.

    Host: David Chiang

    More Info: TBA

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) -

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kary LAU

    Event Link: TBA

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