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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for July
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CS Colloquium
Thu, Jul 14, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gerry Tesauro, IBM Research
Talk Title: How Watson Learns Superhuman Jeopardy! Strategies
Abstract: Major advances in Question Answering technology were needed for Watson to play Jeopardy! at championship level -- the show requires rapid-fire answers to challenging natural language questions, broad general knowledge, high precision, and accurate confidence estimates.
In addition, Jeopardy! features four types of decision making carrying great strategic importance: (1) selecting the next clue when in control of the board; (2) deciding whether to attempt to buzz in; (3) wagering on Daily Doubles; (4) wagering in Final Jeopardy. This talk describes how Watson makes the above decisions using innovative quantitative methods that, in principle, maximize Watson's overall winning chances. We first describe our development of faithful simulation models of human contestants and the Jeopardy! game environment. We then present specific learning/optimization methods used in each strategy algorithm: these methods span a range of popular AI research topics, including Bayesian inference, game theory, Dynamic Programming, Reinforcement Learning, and real-time "rollouts." Application of these methods yielded superhuman game strategies for Watson that significantly enhanced in its overall competitive record.
Joint work with David Gondek, Jon Lenchner, James Fan and John Prager.
Biography: Gerry Tesauro is a Research Staff Member at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center. He is best known for developing TD-Gammon, a self-teaching program that learned to play backgammon at human world championship level. He has also worked on theoretical and applied machine learning in a wide variety of other settings, including multi-agent learning, dimensionality reduction, computer virus recognition, computer chess (Deep Blue), intelligent e-commerce agents and autonomic computing. Tesauro has a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University.
Host: Prof. Fei Sha
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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Six Sigma Black BeltMon, Jul 18, 2011
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: 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 youâve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period (July 18-22; August 15-19; and September 12-16, 2011).
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 IIEâs 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.
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htmAudiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htm
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Wireless Channel Uncertainty in Relay-Assisted Communication and Distributed Detection Systems
Mon, Jul 18, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Azadeh Vosoughi, University of Rochester
Talk Title: Wireless Channel Uncertainty in Relay-Assisted Communication and Distributed Detection Systems
Abstract: One of the main challenges in wireless communications is coping with channel uncertainty. Dealing with this uncertainty, and the limitations it imposes, is tightly related to the specific system and its application. In this talk, we consider two systems, namely a wireless bi-directional relay-assisted communication system and a wireless distributed detection system. We study the impacts of channel uncertainty on the performance limits of these two systems and investigate optimal transceiver designs that minimize these impacts.
For the bi-directional relay-assisted communications we consider a training-based system, in which receivers learn the channels via employing dedicated pilot symbols. Assuming Gaussian inputs and block Rayleigh fading channel model, we study the trade-off between the accuracy and the bandwidth/energy costs of channel estimation and explore optimal transmit resource allocation, subject to network power constraint. We consider Cramer-Rao lower bound for channel estimation, sum-rate and outage probability bounds as the performance metrics.
Next, we discuss the effects of channel uncertainty on the design and performance of a wireless distributed detection system that is tasked with solving a binary hypothesis testing problem. We consider systems with training-based and blind channel estimation and coherent/non-coherent receptions. We investigate the optimal data fusion rules that maximize the overall system detection reliability and error exponent. Furthermore, we present and compare several detection and data fusion designs that exploit diversity to combat channel uncertainty and enhance system performance.
Biography: Azadeh Vosoughi is Wilmot Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester. She received her BS degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1997, her MS degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, in 2001, and her PhD degree from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 2006, all in Electrical Engineering. Her research interests lie in the areas of wireless relay-assisted communications, distributed detection and estimation, and distributed source coding and compression. She was the recipient of the Furth award in 2006 and was appointed as Wilmot Assistant Professor in 2009 at the University of Rochester. Dr. Vosoughi received the NSF CAREER award in 2011 for her research on the integration of signal processing and communications for distributed detection systems.
Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, EEB 536, x04667
More Information: Vosoughi.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Tue, Jul 19, 2011
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: 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 youâve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period (July 18-22; August 15-19; and September 12-16, 2011).
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 IIEâs 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.
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htmAudiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htm
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Pd.D. Defense
Tue, Jul 19, 2011 @ 02:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yi-Hua Edward Yang, USC EE-Systems
Talk Title: Large-Scale and High-Throughput Pattern Matching on Parallel Architectures
Abstract: Large-scale pattern matching has many applications ranging from text processing to deep packet inspection (DPI) where hundreds or thousands of pre-defined strings or regular expressions (regexes) are matched concurrently and continuously against high-bandwidth input data. The large number of patterns and the high matching throughput make large-scale pattern matching both compute and memory intensive. In this thesis, we propose novel algorithms, constructions, and optimizations to accelerate large-scale pattern matching on two prominent classes of parallel architectures: Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and general-purpose multi-core processors. We focus our studies on large-scale string pattern matching (SPM) and regular expression matching (REM) in the context of DPI for network intrusion detection.
For SPM, we propose a head-body partitioning to efficiently handle large dictionary. Specifically, we design a pipelined affix-search relay for accelerating the dictionary "head" on FPGA, as well as a body branch data structure with branch grafting for accelerating the dictionary "body" on processor core with single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD) operations. For REM, we propose a modified McNaughton-Yamada algorithm to convert an arbitrary regex into a modular NFA with uniform structure, which can be (1) mapped onto FPGA with spatial stacking and parallel SRL for scalable throughput and efficient resource utilization; (2) further partitioned into a segmented regex-NFA for efficient implementation in word-based operations on general-purpose processor core. We also develop software framework to automatically optimize our REM solutions. Overall, our designs achieve better memory efficiency, higher per-stream throughput, faster construction and better attack resilience over previous state-of-the-art solutions.
Finally, we formalize a novel semi-deterministic finite automaton for REM, offering space-time tradeoff between the compute-intensive NFA and the memory-intensive DFA. We propose the convolvement analysis and compatible state grouping algorithms to convert any NFA into a minimal SFA, whose space efficiency can then be traded off for lower time complexity.
Biography: Yi-Hua Edward Yang received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan in 1997, and the M.Sc. degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland in 1999. He was a research assistant at the Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California From 2005 to 2007. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California. His research interests include algorithmic optimization on parallel architectures, high performance architecture designs for network processing, security and cryptography.
Host: Defense Chair, Prof. Viktor K. Prasanna
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: EES & CS PhD Students & Faculty
Contact: Janice Thompson
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Wed, Jul 20, 2011
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: 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 youâve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period (July 18-22; August 15-19; and September 12-16, 2011).
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 IIEâs 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.
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htmAudiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htm
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Thu, Jul 21, 2011
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: 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 youâve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period (July 18-22; August 15-19; and September 12-16, 2011).
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 IIEâs 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.
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htmAudiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htm
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Fri, Jul 22, 2011
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: 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 youâve learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period (July 18-22; August 15-19; and September 12-16, 2011).
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 IIEâs 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.
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htmAudiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/SixSigmaBlackBelt.htm
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Large-Scale Industrial Software Systems: Research Opportunities and Challenges
Fri, Jul 22, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Srini Ramaswamy, Industrial Software Systems, ABB Corporate Research Center, India
Talk Title: Large-Scale Industrial Software Systems: Research Opportunities and Challenges
Abstract: Software systems development is fast becoming a globalized activity and this is an increasingly major trend within all industrial sectors. Due to the many benefits of globalization, from the integration of multiple ethnic / market perspectives driven idea generation to development cost structuring, middle and small-sized software companies are now beginning to establish worldwide development campuses / partners. Thus, globalization has become an overwhelming phenomenon in the software industry and is rapidly defining the nature of software development for the 21st century. For Industrial Automation companies like ABB in emerging markets such as India, these opportunities are both exciting we well as immensely challenging. They present problems that are incredibly different from similar-sized western markets and require a significant amount of innovation and creativity to develop robust, sustainable, yet significantly low-cost solutions for such markets. In this talk, I will present an overview of ABB in India and its research activities, specifically in the areas of Industrial Communications and Industrial Software Systems.
Biography: Dr. Srini Ramaswamy transitioned from an academic to a corporate research career in 2010, as the head for Industrial Software Systems research at ABB India Corporate Research Center, in Bangalore, India. His primary role is in research team building and leadership, developing university relationships and engaging in applied research for the creation and execution of projects with transformative value for the company's power technologies and process automation business units. On the academic front, he also serves as a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a honorary adjunct professor at the Indian Institute of Information Technology â Bangalore. His research interests are on intelligent and flexible control, behavior modeling, analysis and simulation, software stability and scalability; particularly in the design and development of complex software systems. Specific applications include real-time control issues in automation and manufacturing, data mining and distributed real-time applications. His work is motivated by the desire to understand the various requirements to build scalable, intelligent software systems with the inherent ability to successfully respond to observed and reported behavioral changes in their environment.
Host: Vice Dean Raghu Raghavendra
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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USC Physical Sciences in Oncology Center Monthly Seminar Series
Fri, Jul 22, 2011 @ 11:45 AM - 01:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Matteo Pellegrini Ph.D, UCLA Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology
Talk Title: Transgenerational Inheritance of DNA Methylation
Abstract: DNA Methylation is thought to play an important role in the regulation of gene expression and cellular differentiation. Recently it has become possible to profile the entire DNA methylome using bisulfite sequencing coupled with next generation sequencers. Using these approaches several studies have identified regions that are differentially methylated across different cell types. However, the degree to which DNA methylation is heritable across generation remains an open question. We are currently investigating how patterns of DNA methylation are preserved in parental and F1 crosses in both pants and mammals. We are also investigating the role that diet plays on transgenerational DNA methylation patterns in mice. A fuller understanding of these effects will allow us to more completely understand how the effects of environmental changes can be propagated across generations.
CSC Building 2nd Floor - Harkness Auditorium
Host: Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. IGM, 2250 Alcazar Street, CSC-250, Los Angeles, CA. Information - contact Kristina Gerber at 323-442-3849. Pizza and beverages served for attendees at 11:45 a.m.
Location: Clinical Science Center (CSC) - Harkness Auditorium - IGM
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kristina Gerber
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Oral Defense: Diffraction of Anti-Plane (SH) Waves by Surface Elliptical Topographies in an Elastic Half-Space
Wed, Jul 27, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Alongkorn Amornwongpaibun, CEE Ph.D. Candidate
Abstract: The exact, analytic solutions to various two-dimensional semi-elliptical hill models subjected to incident plane SH waves in an elastic half-space are presented These require the technique of angular half-range expansion in elliptical coordinate to deal with mixed-boundary condition arisen during mathematical implementation of all hill models; the traction-free boundary condition at the surface of the elliptical hill and the continuity of displacement and stress at the interface.
In the study we found out that the existence of a hill results in complex pattern of surface displacement. For nearly grazing angle, a hill shields the propagating waves, resulting in a standing wave pattern in the coming direction and the focusing of the amplitude at the far edge of the hill. In addition the presence of full-elliptical tunnels resulted in more prominent standing waves, and amplitudes of ground motion in the neighborhood of unity or less on the far end may be monitored. We discovered that the presence of a full-elliptical tunnel amplifies maximum displacement by 30%-70% from corresponding value of reference (inexistence of a tunnel) for the horizontal incidence and de-amplifies maximum displacement in the range of 1%-15% for the vertical incidence.
In contrast to the full-elliptical tunnel model, horizontal incidences are able to slip underneath semi-tunnels. The weaker standing waves on the left side and weaker shadow zones associated with high jumps of the displacement amplitude at the far edge of the hill are observed. However, when the incident waves are nearly vertical, the stronger shielding effect due to semi-elliptical tunnels than to full-elliptical ones are detected. It could be said that the hinder efficiency of an elliptical tunnel depends on the direction of wave passage. In general the tunnel becomes better obstruction when the incidence is propagating normal to its major axis.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 345
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Oral Defense Dissertation
Wed, Jul 27, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Payam Pakbin, ENE Ph.D. Candidate
Talk Title: Investigation of Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Size-segregated Particulate Matter in a Metropolitan Environment and Their Impact on Air Quality in Southern California
Abstract:
Numerous epidemiological studies have associated the adverse respiratory and cardiovascular effects to atmospheric particulate matter (PM) exposure. There is ample literature providing evidence of adverse effects for all inhalable particle size ranges, however the biological mechanisms responsible for the toxicity of PM are still uncertain. Due to the lack of data about how different PM components act in a complex mixture, it is not possible to precisely quantify the contributions from the main sources and components to the effects on human health.
Thus, PM in health impact assessments is usually regarded as a uniform pollutant, regardless of the contribution from different sources, and assuming the same effect on morality. This is probably not a correct assumption, but is a pragmatic compromise while waiting for sufficient knowledge that will allow the use of indicators other than particle mass. As a result linking the toxicity of PM with several of its chemical components has been the focus of considerable research over the past decade. The associations between health endpoints with the hundreds of potentially toxic chemical species and PM characteristics may be daunting and not cost efficient. Therefore it is desirable to focus on the casualty of the few critical chemical components that current science supports as potentially the most harmful to human health. Such information will allow for more effective regulatory control strategies, more targeted air quality standards, and as a result, reductions in population exposure to the most harmful types of airborne PM.
The current particulate matter emission standards are based on PM mass only. However, the prevailing scientific opinion contends that PM mass is a surrogate measure of other physical and chemical properties of PM that are the actual causes of the observed health effects. In this study we focus on the PM components that are not currently regulated, while there is ample evidence that they can cause hazardous health outcomes.
The effect of the new after-treatment technologies on the composition of the remaining organic compounds, including the semi-volatile organic carbon (SVOC) fraction, is studied. While the association of adverse health effects with SVOC compounds has been reasonably well documented, the exact mechanisms by which SVOC compounds inflict health effects remain largely unknown. Therefore a new technology is developed that makes it possible to conduct toxicity and inhalation exposure studies separately to PM and vapor phase SVOC to investigate the degree to which health effects attributable to these pollutants are affected by their phases. In addition, in regards of PM10 standards, coarse PM emissions are usually from hard to control sources like windblown soil and dust, brake lining abrasion, tire wear and bioaerosols, therefore control of fine PM emissions is easier to achieve in order to meet PM10 standards. Coarse and fine PM have substantially different sources and sinks, and as a result different chemical composition, which would lead to potentially different health outcomes. Moreover, the available CPM mass concentration data is much more limited compared to ambient PM2.5 mass concentration data and hence significantly less is quantitatively known about the characteristics of CPM. In order to study the physical, chemical and toxicological characteristics of CPM in Los Angeles Basin, 10 distinct measurement sites were employed to sample the CPM for an entire year, in order to provide a much needed database of coarse PM characteristics in the Los Angeles basin, providing the seasonal and spatial variations over a variety of urban and semi-rural areas during one year of sampling period.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209 Conference Room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
