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Events for September 22, 2006

  • On Campus Freshmen Admission Interviews continue...

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Admission Interviews are available to freshman applicants throughout the Fall until December 15, 2006. Freshman applicant interviews are not required as part of the admission process, however we would like to meet as many of our applicants as possible. All interview appointments are scheduled online.http://viterbi.usc.edu/admission/freshman/interviews/

    Audiences: Freshmen Applicants for Fall 2007

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Meet USC (AM session)

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid.Reservations are required for Meet USC. Please call the USC Admission Center at (213) 740-6616 to check availability and to make an appointment. Be sure to tell them you are interested in Engineering!

    Location: USC Admission Center

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • The Physical View of Computational Complexity

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Dr. Allon Percus
    Division of Computer, Computational and Statistical Sciences, LANL / Department of Mathematics, UCLAPhysicists define a phase transition as an abrupt change in microscopic order, such as the transition from a solid to a liquid. Many fundamental problems in computer science exhibit phase transitions as well. The classic example is satisfiability: given a set of logical constraints acting on Boolean variables, can one assign truth values to the variables so that all constraints are simultaneously satisfied? For randomly generated formulas with many variables, as one increases the number of constraints per variable, there is a threshold at which the answer goes abruptly from almost certainly yes to almost certainly no. Moreover, this phase transition is connected with algorithmic performance. Over a wide range of computational problems, the hardest instances to solve are those near the transition. I will discuss the role of phase transitions in random combinatorial problems,demonstrating how the physical view of the phase structure has transformed our understanding of average-case computational complexity and inspired new algorithmic approaches.

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Shane Goodoff

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  • Finite-Length Optimization of Iterative Coding Systems Via Scaling

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    SPEAKER: Prof. Ruediger Urbanke, Swiss Federal Institute of TechnologyABSTRACT: The infinite-length performance of iterative coding systems is by now relatively well understood. Much less is known about the practical important case of finite-length codes. I will argue that a method called "finite-length scaling", which is based on relating the code performance of various lengths, is a useful tool for the analysis and optimization of real systems. This method has the advantage that it is in principle applicable in a fairly general setting.So far, however, the method has been worked out explicitly only for the case of transmission over the binary erasure channel and we are just about to understand the case of transmission over the binary symmetric channel under Gallager A decoding.I will describe what remains to be done and what we can expect to see as final result.[This is joint work with Abdelaziz Amraoui, Jeremie Ezri, and Andrea Montanari.]Bio: Ruediger L. Urbanke received his Diplomingenieur from the Vienna Institute of Technology in 1990 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in 1992 and 1995, respectively. From 1995-1999 he held a position at the Mathematics of Communications Department at Bell Labs. Since November 1999, he has been on the Faculty of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and a co-recipient of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2002 Best Paper Award. Since October 2000 he has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.Host: Prof. Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu

    Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

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  • Meet USC (PM session)

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 12:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid.Reservations are required for Meet USC. Please call the USC Admission Center at (213) 740-6616 to check availability and to make an appointment. Be sure to tell them you are interested in Engineering!

    Location: USC Admission Center

    Audiences: Prospective Freshmen and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Viterbi Museum Open Today 12:30-2:00

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 12:30 PM - 02:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Receptions & Special Events


    The Viterbi Museum is located on the 2nd Floor of RTH near the elevators. For more information please visit: http://viterbi.usc.edu/about/viterbimuseum/

    Location: 2nd Floor RTH near the elevators

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jason Dziegielewski

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  • Chem-Bio Informatics Approaches to Drug Design by Dr. Rajni Garg

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Computer assisted drug design techniques play a major role in lead optimization in drug discovery and development, which significantly reduces the time and cost. Chem.-bio informatics encompasses the design, organization, storage, management, retrieval, analysis, dissemination, visualization and use of chemical and biological information. Various tasks involved are data mining, molecular modeling (docking), defining quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR), pharmacophore mapping, structure/substructure searching etc. for predicting biological activity and other properties from chemical structure. Lately, many engineering approaches such as data mining, neural networks, pattern recognition, shape analysis and 3D graphics are being increasingly applied for multi-modality data analysis in order to understand the drug-receptor interaction. In the first part of the talk an introduction of QSAR, neural network, pharmacophore mapping and some of the molecular modeling techniques will be presented. The second half will focus on role of some of the emerging approaches in chem.-bio informatics and a few selected applications in HIV drug design and environmental toxicity will be presented.Bio:
    Dr. Rajni Garg received the Ph.D. degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, India in 1996. She joined Professor Corwin Hansch’s laboratory for her postdoctoral research in 1997. She is now a Research Professor in Chemistry and Bimolecular Science Department at Clarkson University, NY; and chemistry and Biochemistry Department at Cal State, San Marcos, CA. Her research interests are in the areas of computer-aided drug design, database development, data mining, chembioinformatics, and environmental toxicity prediction. Dr. Garg is a member of ACS, ISCB, AAAS and many other Societies. She received ACS Cycle of Excellence Award for most accessed article in Chem. Rev. in 2004. Currently, Dr. Garg is advising 3 graduate students research at Clarkson University (see website www.clarkson.edu/~rgarg). Students in her lab have received prestigious CCG Excellence Graduate Award (230th ACS National Meeting, 2005), Shipley Teaching Assistantship award (2005-2006), and CINF- Graduate Fellowship (231st ACS National Meeting, 2006) and summer internships in Pfizer, Wyeth etc. Dr. Garg is a co-author of 32 technical publications in international journals. She has presented her research in 37 national and international conferences as well as contributed two book chapters. Dr. Garg serves as expert reviewer for articles submitted in Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry, Current Medicinal Chemistry, Bioorganic Medicinal Chemistry, Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Internet Electronic Journal of Molecular Design and Letters in Drug Design and Discovery.Host: Professor CC Jay Kuo, x04658, cckuo@sipi.usc.edu

    Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 116

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gloria Halfacre

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  • Evaluating Extremely Impaired Drinking Water Sources

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker:Stefan Cajina, P.E.
    District Engineer, Central District
    California Department of Health Services
    Drinking Water ProgramAbstractThe primary goal of the California Department of Health Services, Drinking Water Program (CDHS) is to ensure that all Californians receive a reliable supply of safe drinking water. To this end, CDHS seeks to approve the use of only high-quality sources of drinking water. As populations increase, however, and domestic demands on the state's water resources grow, more water utilities are proposing to treat and distribute water from "extremely impaired" sources to their customers. CDHS may consider a drinking water source to be extremely impaired for various reasons, including high levels of contamination, a mixture of contaminants of health concern, proximity to known contaminating activities, or use of the source to intercept contaminants of health concern.The use of extremely impaired sources of drinking water may increase the health risk to the public, and should therefore be avoided when high-quality sources are available. In the past, some treatment projects involving extremely impaired sources have proved inadequate due to increasing contaminant levels or the appearance of unexpected contaminants. However, CDHS recognizes that many local water supplies need to be cleaned up, and that the resulting product water represents a significant resource that should not be wasted. In some situations, particularly when high-quality sources are overtaxed or unavailable, CDHS may consider the use of extremely impaired sources for domestic water supply. In such cases, the source water must be thoroughly and reliably treated to remove all contaminants of health concern. In order to approve such a project, CDHS must thoroughly evaluate the proposal and conclude that public health is adequately protected. In addition, the project must be acceptable to consumers. CDHS developed Policy Memorandum 97-005 – Policy Guidance for Direct Domestic Use of Extremely Impaired Sources, to guide staff in the evaluation of such proposals.The evaluation process as set forth in Policy 97-005 consists of 12 essential elements:
    1. Source water assessment
    2. Full characterization of the raw water quality
    3. Evaluation of source protection program
    4. Evaluation of monitoring and treatment
    5. Evaluation of human health risks associated with failure of proposed treatment
    6. Identification of alternatives to the use of the extremely impaired source and comparison of potential health risks
    7. Completion of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review of the project
    8. Submittal of a permit application
    9. Public hearing
    10. CDHS evaluation
    11. Finding that project meets or does not meet CDHS requirements for approval
    12.Issuance or denial of permitBy completing the Policy 97-005 evaluation process, water utilities, CDHS, and the public can make informed decisions regarding the use of extremely impaired sources. Any treatment project that is approved by CDHS for domestic water supply may be expected to protect public health for the life of the project.

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 156

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Honors Program Colloquium: The Demographic Time Bomb

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Engineering Honors Colloquium lecture given by Dr. James Doane, Manager of Knowledge Management Services at Jet Propulsion Labratory

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students

    Contact: Erika Chua

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  • A Non-Parametric Data-Driven Approach to Inventory Planning and Revenue Management

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    University Calendar


    Information and Operations Management Department, Marshall School of Business Seminarby Dr. Woonghee Tim HuhIEOR Department, Columbia UniversityABSTRACT: We consider inventory planning and revenue management problems where the distribution of demand distribution is not available a priori, and lost sales are not observable. We take a non-parametric approach, and propose adaptive algorithms that generate a sequence of ordering decisions over time, where the decision in each period depends only on historical sales data. We show that our adaptive algorithms converge to the optimal solution, and establish the convergence rate.This is a joint work with Paat Rusmevichientong.Woonghee Tim Huh is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at Columbia University. His current research interests include developing data-driven adaptive policies, and proving structural results in the inventory theory such as the optimality of threshold policies. He has received Columbia Engineering School's Distinguished Teaching Award and the Diversity Teaching Award. He recieived a B.A. in sociology, B.Math in computer science and M.Math in combinatorics & optimization and from the University of Waterloo, and holds an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University.Friday, September 22, 2006, Hoffman Hall 303, 1:30 - 3:00 PM

    Location: Hoffman Hall 303

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • Material Science Seminar

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Ng Lam (Argonne National Lab)

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Petra Pearce

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  • According to Jim TV Show taping with NSBE

    Fri, Sep 22, 2006 @ 03:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations

    Student Activity


    Everyone is invited to come to a tv show taping for bonding. If you would like to go send an email to nsbe@usc.edu. If you can drive a carpool please indicate that in your email. See you there!

    Location: Meet in front of RTH

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: NSBE

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