Select a calendar:
Filter October Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for October 15, 2013
-
Far out Experiments in MRI using FM Pulses
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Garwood, University of Minnesota
Talk Title: Far out Experiments in MRI using FM Pulses
Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series
Abstract: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses radiofrequency (RF) irradiation to excite and manipulate nuclear spins. In multiple disciplines of MRI, significant gains in experimental precision and new experimental capabilities are made possible by RF pulses that are frequency modulated (FM). This presentation will show clinically relevant examples of how FM pulses can be exploited for MRI.
FM pulses can be used not only to improve data quality, but also to reveal spin dynamics, such as dipole-dipole interactions and exchange between spins on different molecules. The ability to modulate the pulse frequency, as well as the pulse amplitude, creates almost limitless possibilities to sensitize the MRI signal to molecular motions happening on slow time scales. This presentation will show how this novel approach can create contrast for better delineating normal anatomy and disease states.
By exploiting unique features of FM pulses, we have also developed a radically different approach to produce MR images. The technique is called SWIFT (sweep imaging with Fourier transformation). The FM pulse used in SWIFT makes possible simultaneous or time-shared excitation and acquisition. The smooth change of gradient orientation used in SWIFT produces negligible acoustic noise, making image acquisition close to silent.
Finally, spatiotemporal-encoding methods using FM pulses have been attracting much interest recently. In particular, the spatiotemporal domain allows direct treatment of spatial problems like B0 and B1 inhomogeneity. I will describe a new spatiotemporal MRI technique called STEREO (steering resonance over the object). This unique technique excites MR signals locally and steers the localized region over the object in a spatiotemporal manner. STEREO provides a means to accomplish multi-dimensional spatiotemporal-encoded MRI in a manner that permits compensation for extreme magnetic field inhomogeneity. With STEREO, MR images are reconstructed using exclusively an inverse problem solution (i.e., no Fourier transformation).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: this research is funded by NIH grant P41 EB15894
Biography: Michael Garwood, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Radiology and Associate Director of the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, at the University of Minnesota, where he has been for the past 27 years. He holds the Lillian Quist â⬓ Joyce Henline Chair in Biomedical Research. Dr. Garwood was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he received bachelors degrees in biology and chemistry in 1981, and a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1985. In his time at the University of Minnesota, he has made many significant contributions to the field of biomedical NMR, mostly involving MRI technology development for better detection and assessment of therapies for cancer, Alzheimerââ¬â¢s disease, and other disorders. He has many awards and honors, including the Gold Medal from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Dr. Garwood has published more than 170 scientific papers and is an inventor on 15 patents.
Host: Professor Krishna Nayak
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/
-
ASBME at Red Cross Rivalry Blood DriveTue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Help save lives by volunteering at the annual Red Cross rivalry blood drive against Notre Dame. Sign-up for a tabling shift and write "ASBME" in the organization column at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnMCk1jlOZ0PdDhmbFBxMkh6WG1DLVBCNkV5YTJiY2c&usp=sharing#gid=0 If you would like to donate blood yourself, follow the instructions ont he facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/613006835417253/
Location: May Ormerod Harris Hall, Quinn Wing & Fisher Gallery (HAR) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering
-
Phd Defense - Nader Noori
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Candidate: Nader Noori
Laurent Itti (Chair)
Michael Arbib
Lisa Azzi-Zadeh (Outside member)
10/15/13
EEB 248
2pm-4pm
Title : The Symbolic Working Memory System
Subtitle: Deriving an Embodied Working Memory Machinery for the Symbolically-Intelligent Mind from Sensorimotor Resources of the Brain
Abstract
Dominant theoretical paradigms for describing the functioning of the brain's short-term memory management systems in the domains of low-level/perception-action and and high-level/intellectual functions follow drastically different principles: embedded and distributed in the low-level domain, disembodied and centralized in the high-level domain. Given that the human cognitive system functions at both levels in different contexts simultaneously this question arises whether indeed there are two types of working memory systems running in parallel under two different operational principles in human brain or, a more parsimonious account can explain all different manifestations of working memory in all domains.
Theoretical inconsistencies and biological/evolutionary implausibility of centralized paradigms of the intellectual domain was a motivation for theorizing about a working memory framework for high-level/intellectual functions based upon control theoretic principles of the low-level functional domain.
The proposed framework demonstrates how novel assemblage of embedded schemas in existing sensorimotor systems may supply a system for management of symbolically represented sensory and motor information serving intellectual tasks. In the
proposed framework, strategic and evolutionarily-constrained reuse of sensorimotor resources for management of respectively spatially-organized and temporally-sensitive information support random access and serial access schemas for management of
symbolic information. Through grounding access schemas for management of symbolic information in sensorimotor systems we are able to predict ramifications of working memory management during the performance of mental tasks at behavioral and neural levels. A detailed example in applying this methodology in well-studied cases of forward and backward recall tasks will be presented with additional computational modeling and the results of simulations.
Our systematic approach in mapping spatial/temporal characteristics of sensorimotor systems onto access modes provides a symbolic interface to other frameworks and
architectures for describing the symbolically-intelligent mind. Proposed framework provides for the first time a neurally-grounded and sensorimotor-based account for management of symbolic information with embodied cognition prospects with opportunities for experimental validations and applications.
In addition to theoretical and computational discussions the result of some experimental studies including eye-tracking during mental sorting tasks will be presented as the supporting evidence for the propose theory.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
-
CS Colloquium - Ashutosh Saxena: How should a robot perceive the world?
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ashutosh Saxena, Cornell University
Talk Title: How should a robot perceive the world?
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: In order to perform assistive tasks, a robot should learn a functional understanding of the environment. This comprises learning how the objects in the environment could be used (i.e., their affordances). In this talk, I will present methods to represent and learn these affordances using data-driven machine learning algorithms. Our learning algorithm will be Infinite Latent CRFs (ILCRFs) that allow modeling the data with different plausible graph structures. Unlike CRFs where the graph structure is fixed, our ILCRFs learn distributions over possible graph structures in an unsupervised manner.
We then show that our idea of modeling environments using object affordances and (hidden) humans is not only useful for robot manipulation tasks such as arranging a disorganized house, unloading items from a dishwasher, but also in significantly improving standard robotic tasks such as scene segmentation, 3D object detection, human activity detection and anticipation, and task and path planning.
Biography: Ashutosh Saxena is an assistant professor in computer science department at Cornell University. His research interests include machine learning and robotics perception, especially in the domain of robotics in human environments. He received his MS in 2006 and Ph.D. in 2009 from Stanford University, and his B.Tech. in 2004 from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He is a recipient of National Talent Scholar award in India, Google Faculty award, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, Microsoft Faculty Fellowship, and NSF Career award.
In the past, Ashutosh developed Make3D (http://make3d.cs.cornell.edu), an algorithm that converts a single photograph into a 3D model. Tens of thousands of users used this technology to convert their pictures to 3D. He has also developed algorithms that enable robots (such as STAIR, POLAR, see http://pr.cs.cornell.edu) to perform household chores such as unload items from a dishwasher, place items in a fridge, etc. His work has received substantial amount of attention in popular press, including the front-page of New York Times, BBC, ABC, New Scientist, Discovery Science, and Wired Magazine. He has won best paper awards in 3DRR, IEEE ACE and RSS, and was named a co-chair of the IEEE technical committee on robot learning.
Host: Fei Sha
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
-
Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Guglielmo Lulli, Assistant Professor, Dept of Informatics, Systems and Communication, University of Milano â⬓ Bicocca, Italy
Talk Title: " 'Facets' of the Air Traffic Flow Management Problem"
Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series
Abstract: Air traffic has experienced a dramatic increase in recent years. During time periods when the weather is less than ideal and/or demand is at a peak, severe congestion is typically experienced. In response, the air traffic management (ATM) systems assign large delays to many flights. The resulting additional costs are very substantial. It is not surprising that the minimisation of delays due to congestion in air traffic networks has received a lot of attention both from aviation authorities and from the scientific research community. The most effective way to deal with the situation, at least in the short-term, is to adjust the flow of air traffic on a continuous basis so that it matches the available capacity of the various components of the ATM network, thus reducing flight delays. This is known as the Air Traffic Flow Management Problem (ATFM).
In the past few years, many mathematical models have been developed for this purpose, especially to address capacity constraints at major airports or in the terminal airspace around them. However, en-route capacity constraints also impose important limits on air traffic flows. Some en-route sectors experience congestion on an almost routine basis, especially during the summer months. Dealing with sector capacity restrictions requires new mathematical models that capture the largest possible set of feasible actions. In this new framework, the spectrum of available options is wider and it includes in addition to the traditional ground and airborne holding delays, both more tactical actions, e.g., "metering" and "miles-in-tail", and rerouting, i.e., the possibility of rerouting flights through alternative flight paths.
In this talk, we present a new integer programming formulation which captures all the aspects described above. The scope of the model is to suggest the time of departure, the route, the time required to cross each sector and the time of arrivals taking into account the capacity of en-route sectors and airports. The main feature of the model is the formulation of rerouting decisions in a very compact way. With respect to previous models, the methodology we presented does not require any additional variables, but it only introduces new constraints. These constraints implement local routing conditions that are sufficient for the purpose of the model. Moreover, to strengthen the polyhedral structure of the underlying relaxation, we also present three classes of valid inequalities. Several polyhedral insights are also provided.
A wide computational analysis on realistic instances demonstrated the viability of the proposed model. We report short computational times (less than 15 minutes) on instances of the size of the US air traffic control system that make it realistic that our approach can be used as the main engine of managing air traffic in the US. Given that our approach includes all the air traffic control decisions (ground holding, air holding, adjusting speed of aircraft and rerouting) combined with the attractive computational times, makes us optimistic that this approach may succeed in becoming the main air traffic control engine.
This is joint work with D. Bertsimas and A. Odoni.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2013
GRACE FORD SALVATORI (GFS) ROOM 101
3:30 - 4:50 PM
Biography: Guglielmo Lulli is Assistant Professor of Operations Research at University of Milano-Bicocca. He received a PhD in Operations Research in 2003 from the University of Rome ââ¬ÅLa Sapienzaââ¬Â. During his studies, he visited the NEXTOR center at University of Maryland and the System and Industrial Engineering Department at University of Arizona, both for one year appointment. In 2007, he was recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests focus on mathematical programming and stochastic programming particularly as applied to transportation and logistic operations, air traffic flow management and bio-computational problems.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: Seminar-Lulli.doc
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - Room 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
-
Writing Workshop for International Students
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
This Writing Workshop will focus on skills and techniques to successfully write papers for WRIT 140, WRIT 340 and other GEs. Come to this workshop to meet with faculty and graduate assistants from the Engineering Writing Program. Bring your questions and we will help!
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Undergraduate International Students
Contact: Jenny Vazquez-Akim
-
Arup Information Session
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 05:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
-
What's The Difference? Behavioral vs. Technical Interviewing
Tue, Oct 15, 2013 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Join us in an interactive discussion led by industry representatives from Amazon Orange County, Baxter, City of Los Angeles, Clark Construction, and URS.
The panel will offer you tips in succeeding at behavioral and technical interviews.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Career Services and Center for Engineering Diversity
