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Events for September 24, 2013
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Achieving Photoreal Digital Actors in Film and in Real-Time
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Paul Debevec, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Talk Title: Achieving Photoreal Digital Actors in Film and in Real-Time
Abstract: Somewhere between "Final Fantasy" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", digital actors crossed the "Uncanny Valley" from looking strangely synthetic to believably real. This talk describes how the Light Stage scanning systems and HDRI lighting techniques developed at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies have helped create digital actors in a range of recent movies and research projects. In particular, the talk describes how high-resolution face scanning, advanced character rigging, and performance-driven facial animation were combined to create 2008's "Digital Emily", a collaboration with Image Metrics (now Faceware) yielding one of the first photoreal digital actors, and 2013's "Digital Ira", a collaboration with Activision Inc., yielding the most realistic real-time digital actor to date. The talk includes recent developments in HDRI lighting, polarization difference imaging, and reflectance measurement, and 3D object scanning, and concludes with advances in autostereoscopic 3D displays to enable 3D teleconferencing and holographic characters.
Biography: Paul Debevec is a Research Professor at the University of Southern California and the Associate Director of Graphics Research at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies. From his 1996 P.hD. at UC Berkeley, Debevec's publications and animations have focused on techniques for photogrammetry, image-based rendering, high dynamic range imaging, image-based lighting, appearance measurement, facial animation, and 3D displays. Debevec serves as the Vice President of ACM SIGGRAPH and received a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award in 2010 for his work on the Light Stage facial capture systems, used in movies including Spider-Man 2, Superman Returns, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Avatar, Tron: Legacy, The Avengers, and Oblivion. http://www.pauldebevec.com/
More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/medical-imaging-seminar-series/
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/medical-imaging-seminar-series/
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Lyman L. Handy Colloquia: Advances in Membrane and Absorption Processes for Carbon Capture
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jennifer Wilcox,
Talk Title: Advances in Membrane and Absorption Processes for Carbon Capture
Series: Lyman L. Handy Colloquia
Abstract: The scale by which CO2 must be mitigated worldwide dwarfs the existing chemical industry, making utilization of CO2 as a chemical feedstock a minor component of the portfolio of mitigation options. Carbon capture and
storage is one strategy that could potentially mitigate gigatons of CO2 emissions per year, provided the storage potential exists. Strategies based upon adsorption and catalytic membrane separation processes will be discussed. In particular, carbon-based micro and mesoporous materials for selective CO2 capture and dense metallic membrane materials for selective N2 separation from CO2 will be of focus.
Modeling and simulation play an important role in the construction of realistic pore structures and also aid in understanding adsorption-desorption mechanisms. Density functional theory calculations have been performed to investigate the electronic properties of graphitic surfaces and charge analyses have been carried out to generate partial charge distributions of graphitic surfaces with surface-embedded functional groups. Grand canonical Monte Carlo is used to simulate the adsorption processes and different potential models for the CO2 molecule are adopted to calculate the interactions between fluid molecules and between fluid molecules and pore walls. The effects of various pore sizes, potential models, temperatures, and surface heterogeneity will be discussed.
In addition to adsorption investigations, metallic membrane materials for selective N2 separation for carbon capture are also under investigation. This work involves the adsorption, dissociation, and sub-surface diffusion of N2 in Group V- based metals, including vanadium, niobium, and their alloys with ruthenium. The electronic structure of the metal can be tuned based upon alloying, thereby enhancing N2 permeability. Experimental N2 flux measurements are underway to test the theoretical predictions and preliminary results will be presented.
Biography: Jennifer Wilcox has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University since 2008. Her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2004 is from the University of Arizona, and her B.A.
in Mathematics in 1998 is from Wellesley College. She received the 2007 ARO Young Investigator Award (Membrane Design for Optimal Hydrogen Separation), the 2006 ACS PRF Young Investigator Award (Heterogeneous Kinetics of Mercury in Combustion Flue Gas), and the 2005 NSF CAREER Award (Arsenic and Selenium Speciation in Combustion Flue Gas). Within her research group, she focuses on trace metal and CO2 capture. Her research involves the coupling of theory to experiment to test newly-designed materials for sorbent or catalytic potential. She is the author of the first textbook on Carbon Capture, recently published in March 2012.
Host: Prof. Tsotsis
More Information: Wilcox Poster.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Gerontology Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ryan Choi
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Viterbi Fellowship Reception
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Doctoral Programs
Receptions & Special Events
Viterbi Fellows are cordially invited to attend the Viterbi Fellowship Reception on Tuesday, September 24 from 12-1:30 p.m. in EEB-248. During the session, Viterbi Fellows will learn more about the Viterbi Fellowship and get to know other Viterbi Fellows. Lunch will be served.
RSVP required via the Qualtrics link emailed to Viterbi Fellows on September 10.
Questions may be directed to Tracy Charles at tcharles@usc.edu.Location: EEB-248
Audiences: Fall 2013 Viterbi Fellows
Contact: Jennifer Gerson
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PhD Program Seminar Series: Writing a Personal Statement /Preparing a CV
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Andrea Armani, USC
Talk Title: Writing a Personal Statement /Preparing a CV
Abstract: Your personal statement and your CV are your chance to separate your application from simply being a list of numbers. We will review the do’s and don’ts of writing a personal statement, and review the critical points which you need to make sure to address in your statement. Similarly, it is very important to make sure that your CV contains all of your information and accomplishments, but is also easy to read. We will discuss some of the common mistakes, using before/after examples. We will also go over what you should and should not include on your CV.
Upcoming lectures in series:
Fellowship Applications: 10/1
Host: Andrea Armani
Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 702
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Andrea Armani
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Premkumar Natarajan: Some Recent Advances in Offline Handwriting Recognition
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Premkumar Natarajan, USC Information Sciences Institute
Talk Title: Some Recent Advances in Offline Handwriting Recognition
Abstract: For the past three decades, the task of automatically transcribing the text content of handwritten hardcopy documents (usually referred to as offline handwriting recognition) has remained a thorny challenge. Until a few years ago, research efforts in offline recognition have focused exclusively on script-dependent recognition approaches that are developed for a specific target language or script. Progress was spotty and recognition accuracies poor on real-world data. Starting in 2007, with sponsorship from the DARPA MADCAT program, we started developing a script-independent methodology for offline handwriting recognition which has since yielded revolutionary improvements in offline handwriting recognition performance. The research results have had significant impact at the recent NIST OpenHART 2013 (Open Handwriting Evaluation) workshop, all the participants employed our script-independent methodology in their submissions. In this talk, I will present some recent advances we have accomplished in handwriting recognition and also provide a (very) brief overview of salient historical context. In the latter part of the talk, I will discuss current trends and some open research tasks that might be of interest to some in the audience. I will end the presentation with a discursive discussion of some salient research directions at ISI.
Biography: Premkumar (Prem) Natarajan is the Executive Director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California and a Vice Dean of Engineering in the Viterbi School of Engineering. In his current role, Prem sets the technical vision and operational strategy for ISI. Previously, he served as an Executive Vice President and Principal Scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies where he oversaw technical and business operations in Speech, Language and Multimedia Technologies at BBN.
Prem�s technical contributions span a wide range of multimedia processing and pattern recognition areas, including optical character recognition (OCR, speech recognition, speech-to-speech translation, video analysis and content extraction, topic classification, and speech triage). He has served as Principal Investigator or Senior Advisor on numerous Department of Defense (DOD) and Intelligence Community sponsored research and deployment projects, including important DARPA-sponsored research efforts such as the TRANSTAC, MADCAT, and DEFT programs; IARPA-sponsored research efforts such as VACE and ALADDIN; and other significant USG-sponsored efforts such as the Army MFLTS Program of Record. He is an active member of the professional communities in document and speech processing, and serves on academic advisory boards.
Host: Gaurav Sukhatme
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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VARC Workshop - Study Skills
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Learn and refine key study skills to help you be successful in college! Special attention will be paid to study skills for math, science, and engineering classes.
RSVP online now!Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Academic Resource Center
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USC Energy Clubs Annual 2013 Industry Panel
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 05:00 PM - 06:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Workshops & Infosessions
The USC Energy Club (USCEC) brings you the Annual 2013 Industry Panel. Join us to meet various experts (listed below) from the energy sector and to gain firsthand information about the future and opportunities the sector offers.
Don Paul : Executive Director USC Energy Institute, and
former CTO, Chevron, (moderator)
Robert Olson : Managing Director Union Bank, Marshall Alumni
Robert
Grundstrom: Director of M&A, Occidental Petroleum, Marshall
Alumni
Vitaly Lee : Vice President, Business Development, Terra-Gen
Power, Marshall Alumni
Matt Langer : Manager,Energy Contracts, Southern California
Edison, Marshall Alumni
Please RSVP for the event on the link http://www.eventbrite.com/event/8294658547/eivtefrnd
Visit us at http://uscenergyclub.com/
This event is for "Graduate Students" and please be in "Business formals" for the event.More Information: USCEC Industry Panel Email.docx
Location: Jane Hoffman Popovich & J. Kristoffer Popovich Hall (JKP) - 204
Audiences: Graduate
Contact: USC Energy Club
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Chevron Information Session
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Chevron Information Session for students interested in a challenging and rewarding career opportunity.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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DEN@Viterbi Evening City Session: Manhattan Beach, CA
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
DEN@Viterbi, Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Join representatives from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in your city to discover how you can earn your master's degree completely online through the Distance Education Network (DEN@Viterbi).
The evening will include a brief presentation on the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and DEN@Viterbi. Representatives will be available to answer any questions you may have.
Light appetizers and refreshments will be provided.
RSVP TODAY!Location: Tin Roof Bistro - Manhattan Beach
Audiences: RSVP Required
Contact: Corporate & Professional Programs
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First Project Africa Info Session! (SWE)
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 06:30 PM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Workshops & Infosessions
SWE has a new opportunity for you this year! Come to our first info session on Tuesday, September 24th, to hear about our partnership with Project Africa. Throughout the academic year, we'll be designing a biogas fertilizer that will be built in Northern Uganda on a student volunteer trip at the end of May 2014. If you can't make the meeting, or have any further questions, feel free to contact either Gaya at gcoomara@usc.edu, or Monique at moniquew@usc.edu.
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 118
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Society of Women Engineers Society of Women Engineers
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ACM General Meeting: Demo Day
Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 06:30 PM - 08:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Welcome to ACM! Our first general meeting of the year will be held on TUESDAY, September 24th at 6:30pm in SLH 200! We will give an overview of ACM at USC, our upcoming events (hackathons, tech talks, networking opportunities, social events and more), and membership details. We would then like to open up the rest of the meeting to student demos--if you have a personal or class project that you would like to present, let us know! Please fill out this interest form, and we will contact you soon to confirm.
This will be a great opportunity to meet other students interested in computer science at USC! See you there!
View the Facebook event!Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 200
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Association for Computing Machinery
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ASME General Meeting
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Tue, Sep 24, 2013 @ 08:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Come grab some food, learn about ASME, and find out how to get involved! We'll talk about the events we'll have this semester, including an internship panel and a design event sponsored by Chevron. We hope to see you there!
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 144
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
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