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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for September
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ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar
Tue, Sep 03, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Vishal Gupta, USC (Marshall)
Talk Title: Data-Pooling in Optimization
Host: Dr. Phebe Vayanos
More Information: September 3, 2019.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar
Wed, Sep 04, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gaurav Gupta, Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Southern California
Talk Title: Dealing with Unknown Unknowns: Compact Perception from Heterogeneous Data
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: Deciphering patterns from heterogeneous and noisy data to make robust inferences require knowledge of the complete system. Even with big data sizes, the presence of unknown unknowns (contributors) may not be neglected due to complex interactions of the observed system with the unobserved components and the environment (e.g., brain, social networks, gene-regulatory networks, physiological signals). In this talk, we will discuss the incorporation of unknown unknowns in the context of non-stationary non-Markovian processes. A multi-scale approach is used to model the non-Markovian time-dependence of the complex network nodes. The behavior is modeled using fractional differential equations. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated by modeling the real-world biological data of brain electroencephalogram (EEG), neuron spikes, and physiological signals like temperature and heartbeat intervals while considering the prediction of brain state or the prediction of viral infection. We will also describe how a compact model can be efficiently used to tackle some practical problems in brain machine interfaces and viral prediction in a different perspective than the traditional machine learning approaches.
Biography: Gaurav Gupta is a Ph.D. student working under the supervision of Prof. Paul Bogdan in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Southern California. He received his B.Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2013 and M.S. from University of California Irvine in 2016, both in Electrical Engineering. His research interests include modeling of complex networks in the presence of unknown unknowns, discrete optimization, information theory for machine and representation learning, network inference for biological and social networks and the science biological computation.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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AME Seminar
Wed, Sep 04, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Basile Radisson, USC
Talk Title: Insights into the Nonlinear Evolution of Flame Fronts through Experiments and Models
Abstract: Due to the exothermicity of combustion reaction, premixed flames are intrinsically unstable. Consequently, cellular patterns are formed on the flame front resulting in rich and complex dynamics. Combustion involves several hundreds of elementary chemical reactions occurring at a submillimetric interface, rendering a detailed description computationally intractable. Simplified models offer much insight into these complex dynamics. Through asymptotic analysis, the shape of the flame front can be described by a set of poles and their dynamic evolution in the complex plane. Here, we demonstrate for the first time the validity of such model in comparison to experimental flame evolution. A premixed flame propagates in a reactive mixture held between two vertically oriented ceramic glass plates separated by a 5mm gap. By extracting a flame front from this experiment, we demonstrate the feasibility of describing the shape of the front by a set of pole solutions. The flame front dynamics are well described for approximately ten times the characteristic time of the instability. Beyond this time, the comparison is limited by the sensitivity to initial condition. However, by studying statistical properties of the flame front, here statistics of cell sizes, we demonstrate that the pole description is still valid at long time. Moreover, these statistics satisfy a gamma distribution, characteristic of phenomena for which the elementary interaction rule is of additive nature and which results here from the pole to pole attraction. This analytical prediction of the cell-size distribution could be of great interest for the understanding of turbulent flame dynamics.
Biography: Basile Radisson is a postdoctoral scholar in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Southern California since June 2019. Prior to joining USC, Basile received his PhD from IRPHE, AixMarseille Universite, France, working on flame front dynamics under the supervision of C. Almarcha and B. Denet. His research interests lie in instability phenomena driven by geometric nonlinearities. He is currently working on snap instabilities in fast elastic filaments under the supervision of E. Kanso.
Host: Kanso
Location: SLH 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
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NL Seminar-More than the sum of their parts: Translating idioms without destroying their meaning
Thu, Sep 05, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Denis Emelin and Prince Wang, USC/ISI
Talk Title: More than the sum of their parts: Translating idioms without destroying their meaning
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Translating idioms is hard. As low-frequency linguistic events with a non compositional meaning, idiomatic expressions are at odds with contemporary neural machine translation methods. Accordingly, the literal translation of idiomatic phrases which fails to preserve their semantic content represents an often observed failure case in NMT models. To facilitate future work on idiom translation, the current project sets out to compile a large-coverage, multilingual corpus of parallel sentences containing idiomatic expressions, augmented with their respective monolingual definitions. With this resource in hand, we next aim to propose models which can effectively exploit idiom definitions to avoid literal translation errors. As part of the evaluation of the constructed corpus, we demonstrate that idioms continue to pose a veritable challenge for state of the art NMT models.
Biography: Denis is a second-year PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, advised by Dr. Rico Sennrich. His background is in machine translation, natural language understanding, and linguistics.
Host: Emily Sheng
More Info: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Lu7w/Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR #689
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Lu7w/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
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Albert Dorman Lecture Series: Guest Speaker - Mrs. Debra Reed-Klages
Thu, Sep 05, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Debra Reed-Klages , Sempra Energy
Talk Title: Q & A with Debra Reed-Klages
Host: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Salina Palacios
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Sep 06, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Borivoje NikoliÄ, Professor, University of California at Berkeley
Talk Title: Generating the Next Wave of Custom Silicon
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Borivoje Nikolic.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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Fall 2019 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Mon, Sep 09, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kimon Drakopoulos, University of Southern California
Talk Title: Misinformation in platforms: Persuasion and inundation
Abstract: In the first part of the talk, we study information design in social networks. We consider a setting, where agents actions exhibit positive local network externalities. There is uncertainty about the underlying state of the world, which impacts agents payoffs. The platform can choose a signaling mechanism that sends informative signals to agents upon realization of this uncertainty, thereby influencing their actions. We investigate how the platform should design its signaling mechanism to achieve a desired outcome.. We find that in the case where the platform seeks only to minimize misinformation (regardless of the induced engagement), common threshold mechanisms with identical thresholds across agents are optimal. This is in contrast to the engagement maximization setting, where when agents are heterogeneous in terms of their network positions, common threshold mechanisms induce substantially lower engagement than the optimal mechanisms. We also study the frontier of the engagement/misinformation levels that can be achieved via different mechanisms and characterize when common threshold mechanisms achieve optimal tradeoffs.
In the second part of the talk, we study a model of information consumption where consumers sequentially interact with a platform that offers a menu of signals (posts) about an underlying state of the world (fact). At each time, incapable of consuming all posts, consumers screen the posts and only select (and consume) one from the offered menu. We show that in the presence of uncertainty about the accuracy of these posts, and as the number of posts increases, adverse effects such as slow learning and polarization arise. Specifically, we establish that, in this setting, bias emerges as a consequence of the consumer screening process. Namely, consumers, in their quest to choose the post that reduces their uncertainty about the state of the world, choose to consume the post that is closest to their own beliefs. We study the evolution of beliefs and we show that such a screening bias slows down the learning process, and the speed of learning decreases with the menu size. Further, we show that the society becomes polarized during the prolonged learning process even in situations where the society belief distribution was not a priori polarized.
Biography: Kimon Drakopoulos is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. His research focuses on the operations of complex networked systems, social networks, stochastic modeling, game theory and information economics. Kimon, prior to joining USC, completed his PhD at the Laboratory for Information and Decision systems at MIT focusing on the analysis and control of contagion processes on networks.
Host: Ketan Savla, ksavla@usc.edu
More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/drakopoulos.html
More Information: 190905 Kimon Drakopoulos CSCUSC Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/drakopoulos.html
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Integrating Blockchain & Big Data
Mon, Sep 09, 2019 @ 07:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Wyatt Meldman-Floch, Constellation Labs
Talk Title: Integrating Blockchain & Big Data
Abstract: The main limitation to traditional linear blockchain technology is scalability. Most approaches to scalability improvements utilize L2 solutions such as sharding or partitioning. However, a limitation of these L2 approaches is a lack of resilience to node failures due to the stateful nature of blockchain protocols. Backend systems that can dynamically adapt to changes in throughput or outright resource failure are know as elastic infrastructure, which are a core feature of most tools for large scale data processing. In order to achieve native integration with traditional backend systems, stateful P2P networks need elastic infrastructure. MEME, an online machine learning model created at Constellation Labs was created to address elasticity in stateful peer to peer networks such as blockchain protocols and cryptocurrencies associated to them. MEME is an ensamble model comprised of three known approaches to quantify performance and influence of a participant in P2P networks that can be incorporated with any proof model such as proof of work (PoW), proof of stake (PoS) or proof of reputable observation (PRO). The focus of this presentation is on elastic infrastructure and MEME, an approach for maintaining elasticity in blockchain/DAG clusters created and used by Constellation Labs.
Biography: Wyatt is the CTO and cofounder of Constellation Labs, where he developed an asynchronous DAG protocol to powering a decentralized data marketplace. He is a software engineer based in San Francisco with over six years of professional experience specializing in distributed systems and machine learning. Wyatt's career began at NASAs SETI Institute where he contributed to the Kepler project and implemented an entropy-based algorithm to detect intelligent (alien) communication. Prior to cofounding Constellation Labs, he served as a software engineer for Rally Health, Radius Intelligence and Zignal Labs, where he built scalable data processing pipelines for data mining, distributed graph based NLP models, and stream processing platforms for data enrichment at the Twitter firehose at scale.
Host: Bhaskar Krishnamachari, CCI
More Info: https://www.meetup.com/Hyperledger-Los-Angeles/events/264393286/
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: https://www.meetup.com/Hyperledger-Los-Angeles/events/264393286/
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process ImprovementTue, Sep 10, 2019 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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CS Colloquium: Guy Hoffman (Cornell University) - Designing Robots for Collaboration and Companionship
Tue, Sep 10, 2019 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Guy Hoffman, Cornell University
Talk Title: Designing Robots for Collaboration and Companionship
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Designing robots for human interaction is a multifaceted challenge involving the robot's intelligent behavior, physical form, mechanical structure, and interaction schema. The Cornell Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC^2) lab develops and studies human-centered robots, combining methods from AI, Mechanical Design, and Human-Computer Interaction. This talk focuses on four recent projects from our lab: A collaborative wearable robotic "third arm", a robot that helps human designers make better decisions, an emotive robotic skin that can produce goosebumps and spikes, and an open-source social robotics construction kit that is based on craft materials.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Guy Hoffman is an Assistant Professor and the Mills Family Faculty Fellow in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor at IDC Herzliya and co-director of the IDC Media Innovation Lab. Hoffman holds a Ph.D from the MIT Media Lab. He heads the Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC^2) group, studying the algorithms, interaction schema, and designs enabling close interactions between people and personal robots in the workplace and at home. Among others, Hoffman developed the world's first human-robot joint theater performance, and the first real-time improvising human-robot Jazz duet. His research papers won several top academic awards, including Best Paper awards at HRI and robotics conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2019. His TEDx talk is one of the most viewed online talks on robotics, watched more than 3 million times.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar
Tue, Sep 10, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Alaa Elwany, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University
Talk Title: 4.5D Printing: The Science of Producing Parts with Location-Specific Properties
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: September 10, 2019.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Wed, Sep 11, 2019 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar
Wed, Sep 11, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Arun Kumar, Department of Computer Science & Engineering & Halicioglu Data Science Institute, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Democratizing Machine Learning-based Data Analytics
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: As machine learning (ML) permeates data-driven applications in enterprise, Web, and scientific domains, data management and systems bottlenecks in ML are proving increasingly critical. The overarching goal of my research is to mitigate such bottlenecks and improve the efficiency of ML systems and productivity of ML users, which in turn can help reduce costs and democratize ML-based analytics. Toward this grand goal, we are building abstractions, algorithms, and systems to improve the processes of sourcing and preparing data for ML, performing iterative ML model selection, and integrating ML models with data-driven applications.
In this talk, I will give an overview of our recent work on all these fronts, focusing specifically on a new direction that could transform how ML systems are built: multi-query optimization for ML. Drawing on the lessons of decades of work on query optimization in relational systems, I will talk about some of our recent work on connecting linear algebra, learning theory, and optimization theory with scalable system design and implementation to accelerate the model selection process in ML systems. Our approach is a step towards bridging the large gap between current ML system abstractions and the level at which ML users think, has implications for both statistical models and deep learning, and could lay a principled systems foundation for new AutoML frameworks.
Biography: Arun Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Halicioglu Data Science Institute at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the Database Lab and Center for Networked Systems and an affiliate member of the AI Group. His primary research interests are in data management and systems for machine learning/artificial intelligence-based data analytics. Systems and ideas based on his research have been released as part of the MADlib open-source library, shipped as part of products from EMC, Oracle, Cloudera, and IBM, and used internally by Facebook, LogicBlox, Microsoft, and other companies. He is a recipient of two SIGMOD research paper awards in 2019 and 2014, three distinguished reviewer awards from SIGMOD/VLDB in 2019 and 2017, the 2016 PhD dissertation award from UW-Madison CS, a 2016 Google Faculty Research Award, a 2018 Hellman Fellowship. Research webpage: https://adalabucsd.github.io/
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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AME Seminar
Wed, Sep 11, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Eckart Meiburg, UC Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Settling of Cohesive Sediment: Particle-resolved Simulations
Abstract: We develop a physical and computational model for performing fully coupled, grain resolving Direct Numerical Simulations of cohesive sediment, based on the Immersed Boundary Method. The model distributes the cohesive forces over a thin shell surrounding each particle, thereby allowing for the spatial and temporal resolution of the cohesive forces during particle particle interactions.
We test and validate the cohesive force model for binary particle interactions in the Drafting Kissing Tumbling (DKT) configuration. Cohesive sediment grains can remain attached to each other during the tumbling phase following the initial collision, thereby giving rise to the formation of flocs. The DKT simulations demonstrate that cohesive particle pairs settle in a preferred orientation, with particles of very different sizes preferentially aligning themselves in the vertical direction, so that the smaller particle is drafted in the wake of the larger one. This preferred orientation of cohesive particle pairs is found to remain influential for much larger simulations of 1,261 polydisperse particles released from rest. These simulations reproduce several earlier experimental observations by other authors, such as the accelerated settling of sand and silt particles due to particle bonding, the stratification of cohesive sediment deposits, and the consolidation process of the deposit. This final phase also shows the build-up of cohesive and direct contact intergranular stresses. The simulations demonstrate that cohesive forces accelerate the overall settling process primarily because smaller grains attach to larger ones and settle in their wakes. An investigation of the energy budget shows that the work of the collision forces substantially modifies the relevant energy conversion processes.
Bio
Eckart Meiburg received his Ph.D. from the University of Karlsruhe. After a postdoc at Stanford, he became an assistant professor in applied mathematics at Brown. He then moved to USC as associate then full professor. He later moved to UC Santa Barbara.
His research interests are fluid dynamics and transport phenomena, primarily computational fluid dynamics. He uses highly resolved direct numerical simulations to investigate physical mechanisms governing the spatio temporal evolution of a wide variety of geophysical, porous media, and multiphase flow fields. Some of his current interests are gravity and turbidity currents, Hele Shaw displacements, double diffusive phenomena in particle laden flows, and internal bores.
Meiburg has received a Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Humboldt Senior Research Award, and a Senior Gledden Fellowship (Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia). He is fellow of the American Physical Society and the ASME, was the 2012 Lorenz G. Straub Award Keynote Speaker (Univ. Minn.), gave the Ronald F. Probstein Lecture at MIT in 2018, and was Shimizu Visiting Professor at Stanford University.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Thu, Sep 12, 2019 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics, and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality.
More Info: https://viterbiexeced.usc.edu/engineering-program-areas/six-sigma-lean-certification/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement/
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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Ph.D. Dissertation Defense
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 02:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pradeep Rajendran, AME Ph.D. candidate
Talk Title: Speeding Up Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Robots Operating in Complex Environments
Abstract: Advances in sensing and computing hardware have physically equipped robots to operate in complex environments. In many real-world settings, we desire robots to operate at a high-level of autonomy to reduce operating costs and manpower requirements. A high-level of autonomy can be achieved only when robots are able to plan missions and tasks themselves. Trajectory planning is a fundamental building block required to support high-level decision making in robots.
Trajectory planning for autonomous robots operating in complex environments is a challenging problem. The complexity of trajectory planning problems stems from the dimensionality of robot's state space, the complexity of the robot kinematic and dynamic model, the nature of environmental constraints (e.g., obstacles), task constraints (e.g., rules), the optimization objective function, and the planning-time requirements needed for deployment in the real world. Depending on the complexity, these problems can be solved by existing methods to produce feasible trajectories. But, in many practical applications (e.g., automated package delivery), computing a feasible trajectory alone is not enough. The quality of the computed trajectory is also important. However, in many cases, computing truly optimal trajectories is computationally intensive and thus, very time-consuming. As a result, existing methods do not satisfy planning-time constraints required by the application while maintaining optimality. We need a method that produces high-quality trajectories and at the same time produce those trajectories quickly. Anytime methods handle exactly this problem. However, these methods produce high-quality trajectories quickly only when good heuristics are used.
This work focuses on techniques for anytime algorithms that speed up trajectory planning for autonomous robots in complex environments. It is anticipated that the methodology presented in this work will be applicable to mobile robots operating in an outdoor setting such as uneven terrain, water bodies. In such settings, the speed-up techniques will allow the robot to quickly react to the environment and perform tasks safely. Depending on the application domain, this will also serve as an enabling technology for more advanced services. Many industrial processes are currently use high degree-of-freedom manipulators that are manually programmed by a human operator. Methods presented in this work can greatly simplify workflows related to manipulators and improve manufacturing throughput.
Host: SK Gupta
Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - Laufer Library
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: SK Gupta
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Hai Li, Associate Professor, Duke University
Talk Title: Highly Efficient Neuromorphic Computing Systems with Emerging Nonvolatile Memories
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Hai Li.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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Trajectory planning for manipulators performing complex tasks
Mon, Sep 16, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ariyan Kabir, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Viterbi School of Engineering
Talk Title: Trajectory planning for manipulators performing complex tasks
Abstract: Recent advances in hardware capabilities, computation power, and control algorithms have physically enabled manipulators to perform highly complex tasks. Representative examples can be laundry folding, composite sheet layup, liquid pouring, mobile manipulation, surgery, etc. Using manipulators for complex tasks can significantly improve human productivity and eliminate the need for human involvement in tasks that pose risks to human safety. However, it is not feasible to manually program manipulators for complex tasks in high-mix low-volume applications, as it will take a significant amount of time, effort, and cost. We could use manipulators in complex tasks in high-mix low-volume applications if manipulators could plan their own trajectories. Trajectory planning for manipulators performing complex tasks is a problem with several different challenges. It requires avoiding obstacles present in the robot's workspace, assigning appropriate tasks to the degrees of freedoms in robotic systems, respecting the kinematic and dynamic limitations of the manipulators, and identifying the appropriate trajectory and process parameters for achieving the desired task performance. This talk will present algorithmic foundations to address the problem of trajectory planning for robotic systems. First, I will present a context-dependent search strategy-switching algorithm to navigate the discrete state-space search towards promising directions for point-to-point trajectory planning. Second, I will present a successive refinement strategy for path-constrained trajectory generation using non-linear parametric optimization with conflicting constraints. Finally, I will present an approach to integrate trajectory planning with task-agent assignment for carrying out complex operations with multiple robots.
Biography: Ariyan Kabir is interested in building smart robotic assistants by contributing at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics. His research focus is on motion planning and self-directed learning for high degrees of freedom systems. He is developing algorithms to find near-optimal solutions to computationally hard planning problems. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC). He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from USC in July 2019. He completed his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka. Ariyan has won one best paper award, and two best poster awards from his research contributions.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar, ashutosn@usc.edu
More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/kabir.html
More Information: 190916_Ariyan Kabir_CSC Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/kabir.html
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Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - Lyman L. Handy Colloquia
Tue, Sep 17, 2019 @ 04:00 AM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Peter Voorhees, Materials Science and Engineering, Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University
Talk Title: The Morphology and Topology of Nanoporous Metals
Abstract: Nanoporous metals have a broad range of applications such as catalyst supports, artificial muscles, and battery electrodes. The size-scale of these bicontinuous mixtures of metal and void can be controlled by isothermal coarsening. However, the effects of coarsening on the morphology and topology (connectivity) of the metal interfaces are poorly understood, and thus it is difficult to link the processing of nanoporous metals to their properties. In an effort to understand the factors setting the morphology of the interfaces in nanoporous metals, we employ experimental measurements of the three-dimensional morphology of nanoporous gold. These results are then compared with large-scale phase field simulations of the coarsening of bicontinuous two-phase mixtures. The simulations show that during coarsening bicontinuous two-phase mixtures attain a universal self-similar morphology and topology that can thus be compared directly to nanoporous gold. We find dramatic changes in the morphology and topology of bicontinuous structures for volume fractions of solid just above the critical value at which bicontinuity is lost. A comparison between the simulations and experiments shows the critical role of the volume fraction of metal in setting the morphology and topology of the nanoporous metals.
Biography: Peter Voorhees is the Frank C. Engelhart Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University, and Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics. He is co-director of the Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering and is director of the Center for Hierarchical Materials Design. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was a member of the Metallurgy Division at the National Institute for Standards and Technology until joining the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. He has received numerous awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, ASM International Materials Science Division Research Award (Silver Medal), the TMS Bruce Chalmers Award, the ASM J. Willard Gibbs Phase Equilibria Award, and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science Award for Teaching Excellence. Professor Voorhees is a fellow of ASM International, the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, and the American Physical Society. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published over 280 papers in the area of the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations.
Host: Dr. Kassner
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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**No ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar this week**
Tue, Sep 17, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar
Wed, Sep 18, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Georgios Bouloukakis, University of California, Irvine
Talk Title: Towards End-to-end Data Exchange in the IoT
Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things
Abstract: To enable direct Internet connectivity of Things, complete protocol stacks need to be deployed on resource-constrained devices. Such protocol stacks typically build on lightweight IPv6 adaptations and may even include a middleware layer supporting high-level application development. However, the profusion of IoT middleware-layer interaction protocols has introduced technology diversity and high fragmentation in the IoT systems landscape with siloed vertical solutions. To enable the interconnection of heterogeneous Things across these barriers, advanced interoperability solutions are required.
In this talk, I will introduce a solution for the automated synthesis of protocol mediators that support the interconnection of heterogeneous Things. Our systematic approach relies on software architecture abstractions and model-driven development. I will also present our ongoing work for the automated placement and deployment of protocol mediators at the Edge of IoT spaces.
Biography: Georgios Bouloukakis is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine in the Distributed Systems Middleware group. His research mainly focuses on the design of extensible and efficient IoT systems by leveraging fundamental mathematical models and state-of-the-art technologies. Before joining UC Irvine, Georgios received a postdoctoral scholarship from the Inria@SiliconValley research program. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Pierre and Marie Curie University, conducting his thesis at the research center of Inria Paris in the MiMove team in France.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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AME Seminar
Wed, Sep 18, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kunihiko (Sam) Taira, UCLA
Talk Title: Network-Based Characterization, Modeling, and Control of Fluid Flows
Abstract: The network of interactions among fluid elements and coherent structures gives rise to the amazingly rich dynamics of vortical flows. To describe these interactions, we consider the use of mathematical tools from the emerging field of network science that is comprised of graph theory, dynamical systems, data science, and control theory. In this presentation, we discuss ways to describe unsteady fluid flows with vortical interaction, modal-interaction, and probability transition networks. The insights gained from these formulations can be used to characterize, model, and control laminar and turbulent flows. We will also discuss some of the challenges of applying network based techniques to fluid flows and the prospects of addressing them through data-inspired techniques.
Biography: Kunihiko (Sam) Taira is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA. His research focuses on computational fluid dynamics, flow control, and network science. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Tennessee, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology. He is a recipient of the 2013 U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and 2016 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Awards.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
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NL Seminar- Allen NLP Tools Workshop
Thu, Sep 19, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Seraphina Goldfarb-Tarrant, USC/ISI
Talk Title: AllenNLP Tools Workshop
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: This is a practical talk that highlights some of the areas where AllenNLP the NLP research library excels, and gives a look at new features being released. It will focus on the ways that use of the library can enable reproducibility, interpretability, and visualizations.
Biography: Seraphina Goldfarb-Tarrant is a Research Programmer at ISI, doing work in NLG. She finished her Master's at the University of Washington, and is beginning her PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
Host: Emily Sheng
More Info: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/s/OUQy4/Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR #689
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/s/OUQy4/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
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CS Tech Talk: Lyft Level 5 Tech Talk
Thu, Sep 19, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Anjie Liang, Robert Pinkerton, Alice Chuang, Lyft Level 5
Talk Title: Lyft Level 5 Tech Talk
Series: Computer Science Colloquium
Abstract: Come learn more about our Lyft Core and Level 5 self-driving teams!
Swag will be provided!
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: For the tech talk, we welcome the following speakers:
Anjie Liang, Software Engineer
Anjie is a software engineer on Data Infrastructure for Level 5, a team responsible for indexing and serving all the data that is collected on the autonomous vehicles. Before Lyft, she was completing her undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin. Considering the large amounts of data that is collected on the cars every day, and the many distributed systems needed to process that data, Anjie's first year of working full time has been full of learning opportunities and interesting challenges.
Robert Pinkerton, Hardware Engineer
Rob is a systems engineer at Lyft Level 5, a team responsible for the architecture and requirements definition of our self-driving cars. Before Lyft, he was a systems engineer at SpaceX where he worked on various aspects of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Launch vehicles, including launching a car into space. Rob has performed graduate study in Systems Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Cornell and Stanford University respectively. He is extremely passionate about turning complex systems into products that improve our lives in a meaningful and sustainable way.
Alice Chuang, Software Engineer
Alice is a Software Engineer on Mapping Algo for Level 5, a team that uses Computer Vision and Machine Learning to leverage the data to build maps for autonomous vehicles. Alice graduated from Columbia in the City of New York and after interning last summer, she returned as a full time engineer at Level 5! So far, Alice's experiences at Lyft have been very insightful and exciting.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Computer Science Department
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Ph.D. Dissertation Defense
Fri, Sep 20, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Longlong Chang, AME Ph.D. candidate
Talk Title: Dynamic Modeling and Simulation of Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicles
Host: Nestor Perez-Arancibia
More Information: DissertationAbastract_LonglongChang.pdf
Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - Laufer Library
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nestor Perez-Arancibia
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Center for Knowledge-Driven Interdisciplinary Data Science (CKIDS)
Mon, Sep 23, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Odd Erik Gundersen, Adjunct Associate Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Talk Title: Reproducibility in AI: Standing on the Feet of Giants
Series: Invited Lecture Series
Abstract: First, we need a common understanding of what reproducibility is. Then, I will talk about some of the challenges we face related to reproducing empirical AI research and give some examples of studies that have tried to reproduce results from AI and machine learning. Having this understanding we can identify what we need to do to improve the reproducibility of our own experiments.
Biography: Odd Erik Gundersen is an adjunct associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, where he teaches courses and supervises master students in AI. He received his PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Gundersen has applied AI in the industry, mostly for startups, since 2006. He has conducted several analysis of reproducibility in the artificial intelligence and machine learning literature, and has developed guidelines for reproducibility in data science. Currently, he investigates how AI can be applied in the renewable energy sector and for driver training.
For more information and future speakers, please visit:
https://sites.usc.edu/ckids/events/invited-lecture-series/
Host: Yolanda Gil, Director of Center for Knowledge-Driven Interdisciplinary Data Science (CKIDS)
More Info: https://sites.usc.edu/ckids/events/invited-lecture-series/
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 115
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Alma Nava / Information Sciences Institute
Event Link: https://sites.usc.edu/ckids/events/invited-lecture-series/
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Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - Distinguished Lecture Series
Tue, Sep 24, 2019 @ 04:00 AM - 05:20 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Joachim Moortgat, The Ohio State University
Talk Title: Numerical Modeling of Complex Transport Processes in CO2-EOR and Carbon Sequestration
Abstract: Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into geological formations is used both as a means of mitigating global warming by storing anthropogenic CO2 in saline aquifers, and for purely economic reasons in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). CO2 is a peculiar fluid: At typical reservoir conditions, it often behaves as a supercritical liquid and can be denser that the oil-in-place. And, unlike other gasses, when CO2 dissolves in brine and many types of oil, it increases the local density, which can lead to gravitational instabilities. In this lecture, I will discuss these, and other interesting physical processes related to CO2 injection, as well as the computational challenges in modeling flow and transport in heterogeneous and fractured reservoirs.
Biography: Joachim Moortgat is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University. His research interests lie in the theory and advanced numerical modeling of compositional multiphase flow in subsurface fractured porous media, with a focus on problems that exhibit complex phase behavior (such as asphaltene precipitation, near-critical gas-oil mixtures, gas condensates, etc.). Moortgat holds MS degrees in theoretical physics and astrophysics, both from Utrecht University, and a PhD in astrophysics from the Radboud University, The Netherlands. Moortgat was the recipient of the 2014 SPE Cedric K. Ferguson Meal awarded by the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Host: Dr. Jha
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family
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ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar
Tue, Sep 24, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. David (Xianfeng) Gu, Associate Professor, Stony Brook University
Talk Title: Geometric View of Optimal Transportation and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: September 24, 2019_1 (AI).pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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Epstein Department Seminar
Tue, Sep 24, 2019 @ 04:20 PM - 05:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. David (Xianfeng) Gu , Associate Professor, Stony Brook University
Talk Title: Computational Conformal Geometry, Theory, Algorithms and Applications
Host: Dr. Qiang Huang
More Information: September 24, 2019_2 (Conf. Geometry).pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Grace Owh
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AME Seminar
Wed, Sep 25, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dana Dabiri, University of Washington
Talk Title: Design & Implementation of a 3D-PTV System
Abstract: The dream of experimental fluid dynamicists is to be able to measure complex, three-dimensional turbulent flow fields globally with very high spatial and temporal resolution. While we are still far from fully realizing this dream, significant progress has been made towards this goal during the last three decades. Early quantitative measurement methods using Pitot tubes, Venturi tubes and later measurement methods, such as Hot Wire Anemometry (HWA) and Laser-Doppler Anemometry (LDA), by their nature, were measurement methods that provided instantaneous velocity signals at single-points through time. Early emphasis in turbulence research and its theoretical advancement therefore necessitated a statistical description of turbulent flow fields, which relied heavily upon measurements provided by these single-point measurement techniques. Since the early seventies, the discovery of the existence of three-dimensional coherent structures within turbulent flows using qualitative flow visualization methods (i.e. shadowgraphs, Schlieren systems, dye injection, etc.) has been of significant interest for turbulence researchers. While flow visualization techniques have been around since the days of Prandtl, it is only due to the advent of modern imaging, laser, and data acquisition technology has allowed for qualitative flow visualization to become quantitative. These advents have allowed for the development and advancement of are relatively new measurement technique, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) in two dimensions, and more recently in 3 dimensions. Because of its ability to provide global two/three-dimensional kinematic information as well as its ability to map the evolution of coherent structures through time, PIV/PTV has become a powerful tool in studying, understanding, and modeling fluid flow behavior. In this talk, I will describe the particulars of the 3D Particle Tracking Velocimetry method we have developed and touch on some applications in microflows and LES studies.
Host: AME Department
More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Tessa Yao
Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/
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Medical Imaging Seminar
Thu, Sep 26, 2019 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ye Tian, University of Utah
Talk Title: Radial Simultaneous Multi-slice MRI for Cardiac Perfusion Assessment
Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series
Abstract: First-pass myocardial perfusion MRI is a powerful tool to detect and evaluate coronary artery disease. In this work, we use undersampled radial simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acquisitions to achieve greater slice coverage and reduced sensitivity to motion, compared to current standard techniques. I will present two acquisition frameworks for myocardial perfusion. One that uses radial SMS and a pixel-tracking method to produce multi-view perfusion images. The other framework uses continuous acquisition without gating or magnetization preparation. This work employed patch-based locally low-rank constraints and temporal total variation constraints.
Biography: Ye Tian recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Utah (2014 -“ 2019). He has been working in the cardiovascular MRI group of Utah Center of Advanced Imaging Researches (UCAIR) since May 2016 under the guidance of Edward DiBella and Ganesh Adluru. His interests include myocardial perfusion DCE-MRI, radial SMS, image reconstruction, fast imaging, and myocardial T1 mapping.
Host: Professor Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia White
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NL Seminar Question Answering by Reasoning Across Documents with Graph Convolutional Networks
Thu, Sep 26, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nicola De Cao, University of Amsterdam
Talk Title: Question Answering by Reasoning Across Documents with Graph Convolutional Networks
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Most research in reading comprehension has focused on answering questions based on individual documents or even single paragraphs. We introduce a neural model which integrates and reasons relying on information spread within documents and across multiple documents. We frame it as an inference problem on a graph. Mentions of entities are nodes of this graph while edges encode relations between different mentions e.g. within and cross document co reference. Graph convolutional networks GCNs are applied to these graphs and trained to perform multi-step reasoning. Our Entity GCN method is scalable and compact, and it achieves state of the art results on a multi-document question answering dataset, WikiHo.
Biography: Nicola is a first year Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation ILLC at the University of Amsterdam.
He is appointed at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh supervised by Prof Ivan Titov, and he is part of the Edinburgh NLP group. His work focuses on unstructured Machine Reading Comprehension also know as Question Answering.
Host: Emily Sheng
More Info: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/s/sgwNF/Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR #689
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/s/sgwNF/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Thu, Sep 26, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. William Arnold, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Talk Title: Stuck in the muck: Historical insights into emerging contaminants from sediment cores
Abstract: While many studies on the presence and fate of emerging contaminants have been performed over the past 15+ years, these compounds have been in use for decades. Information about past use provides insight into long term impacts on aquatic systems. Sediment cores provide information about historical use and processing of emerging contaminants. Using cores collected from a lakes with varying degrees of wastewater impact, the records of various antibacterial and antibiotic compounds are analyzed. For triclosan, the levels observed in sediments track with increasing use in a variety of consumer products. The reaction products formed from the chlorination of wastewater and photolysis are also captured in the cores. For antibiotic/antibacterial chemicals used in human and veterinary medicine, sediments also capture the dates of introduction and usage patterns of the chemicals. Quaternary ammonium compounds, used in many consumer products, are also captured in sediment cores. The results provide insight into where efforts should be focused to minimize the introduction of antibiotic/antibacterial chemicals into the environmental.
Biography: William Arnold is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and the Joseph T. and Rose S. Ling Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on the fate of organic chemicals in natural and engineered aquatic systems. He received his S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT (1994), M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Yale (1995), and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University (1999). He then joined the U of MN faculty. He has won both the AEESP Frontiers in Research Award and Outstanding Publication Award.
Host: Dr. Daniel McCurry
More Information: Arnold abstract and bio USC.pdf
Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Fall 2019 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Mon, Sep 30, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Eva Kanso, University of Southern California
Talk Title: Sea Star Inspired Crawling and Bouncing
Abstract: The oral surface of sea stars is lined with arrays of tube feet that enable them to achieve highly controlled locomotion on various terrains. The activity of the tube feet is orchestrated by a nerve net that is distributed throughout the body; there is no central brain. How such a decentralized nervous system produces a coordinated locomotion is yet to be understood. We developed mathematical models of the biomechanics of the tube feet and the sea star body. In the model, the feet are coupled mechanically through their structural connection to the sea star body. We formulated hierarchical control laws that capture salient features of the sea star nervous system. Namely, at the tube foot level, the power and recovery strokes follow a state-dependent feedback controller. At the system level, a directionality command is communicated through the ring and radial nerves to all tube feet. We studied the locomotion gaits afforded by this hierarchical control system. We found that these minimally-coupled tube feet coordinate to generate robust forward locomotion, reminiscent of the crawling motion of sea stars, on various terrains and under various heterogeneity in the tube feet parameters and initial conditions. Our model also predicted a transition from crawling to bouncing consistent with our experiments performed on Protoreaster nodosus. We conclude by commenting on the implications of these findings for understanding the Echinoderms decentralized nervous system and their potential application to autonomous robotic systems.
Biography: Eva Kanso is a professor, and the Zohrab H. Kaprielian Fellow, in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Prior to joining USC, Kanso held a two-year postdoctoral position in Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering as well as an M.A. degree in Mathematics from UC Berkeley. She got her Bachelor of Engineering from the American University of Beirut with distinction. At USC, Kanso studies the physics of how organisms interact with their environments. Kanso combines methods from fluid and solid mechanics with techniques from dynamical systems and control theory to analyze the interplay between the morphology of living systems and the environment to produce biological functions.
Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu
More Info: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/kanso.html
More Information: 190930_Eva Kanso_CSC Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Brienne Moore
Event Link: http://csc.usc.edu/seminars/2019Fall/kanso.html
