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University Calendar
Events for October
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2009 Southern California Symposium on Network Economics and Game Theory
Thu, Oct 01, 2009 @ 08:00 AM - 06:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
2009 Southern California Symposium on Network Economics and Game TheoryOctober 1-2, 2009, 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM, USC Kerckhoff HallThe year marks the first annual Southern California Network Economics and Game Theory Symposium and we would like to invite anyone in Southern California interested in the interaction of networks and economics to attend the workshop. The workshop will be held October 1-2 at USC in Kerckhoff Hall, and more details can be found at:http://medianetlab.ee.ucla.edu/SocalNEGTThe goal of the workshop is to help to create and nurture a community among researchers in southern California that work at the boundaries of industrial and systems engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, and economics. The workshop will include invited presentations from faculty distributed across USC, UCLA, Caltech, UCSD, UCSB, Chapman, and Yahoo, along with
2 keynote speakers from outside of southern CA.Additionally, the workshop will include a student poster session to promote interaction among the groups from the schools.The list of confirmed speakers includes (so far):K. Mani Chandy (Caltech), Jernej Copic (UCLA), Matthew Jackson (Stanford), David Kempe (USC), Dmitri Krioukov (CAIDA, UCSD), Hua Liu (USC), Jason Marden (Caltech), Steve Rassenti (Chapman University), Mihaela van der Schaar (UCLA), Subhash Suri (UCSB), Milinde Tambe (USC), Jean Walrand (UC Berkeley), Simon Wilkie (USC), Leeat Yariv (Caltech), Heather Zheng (UCSB)The organizing committee asks that attendees register as early as possible at http://medianetlab.ee.ucla.edu/SocalNEGT since attendance will be limited to approximately 50 people.If you'd like to present a poster, just indicate so when you register.Location: USC Kerckhoff Hall
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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An Evening with Richard K. Matros, Sun Healthcare Group Chairman and CEO
Thu, Oct 01, 2009 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
What: An Evening with Richard K. Matros, Sun Healthcare Group Chairman and CEOWhen: Thursday, October 1, 2009, 7:00-9:00 pmWhere: Edison Auditorium in Hoffman HallDescription: Interested in the health care industry? Have you ever wondered how a CEO and Chairman of a successful health care company gets to where he is? Rick Matros, CEO and Chairman of Sun Healthcare is coming to USC on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 to speak about his company, his experiences, and the future of health care. Mr Matros also currently serves on the board of directors of Bright Now Dental and Vericare. There will be time to speak to him as well. Mr. Matros is a very approachable individual and loves answering questions and meeting with students. Sun Healthcare (SUNH) is a Fortune 1000 company with over 30,000 employees. Sun is based in Irvine, California. It operates long-term care and post acute care centers and provides other services including physical and occupational therapy, hospice care, and healthcare career staffing.The event is open to all individuals so we encourage you to bring friends who would be interested. We will have refreshments available.The event will be held on Thursday, October 1st, from 7 PM - 9 PM in Edison Auditorium (Basement of Hoffman Hall). If you would like to attend, please RSVP to uschcbc@gmail.com or our Facebook Group http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155597171966.
Location: Edison Auditorium, Hoffman Hall
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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2009 Southern California Symposium on Network Economics and Game Theory
Fri, Oct 02, 2009 @ 08:00 AM - 06:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
2009 Southern California Symposium on Network Economics and Game TheoryOctober 1-2, 2009, 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM, USC Kerckhoff HallThe year marks the first annual Southern California Network Economics and Game Theory Symposium and we would like to invite anyone in Southern California interested in the interaction of networks and economics to attend the workshop. The workshop will be held October 1-2 at USC in Kerckhoff Hall, and more details can be found at:http://medianetlab.ee.ucla.edu/SocalNEGTThe goal of the workshop is to help to create and nurture a community among researchers in southern California that work at the boundaries of industrial and systems engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, and economics. The workshop will include invited presentations from faculty distributed across USC, UCLA, Caltech, UCSD, UCSB, Chapman, and Yahoo, along with
2 keynote speakers from outside of southern CA.Additionally, the workshop will include a student poster session to promote interaction among the groups from the schools.The list of confirmed speakers includes (so far):K. Mani Chandy (Caltech), Jernej Copic (UCLA), Matthew Jackson (Stanford), David Kempe (USC), Dmitri Krioukov (CAIDA, UCSD), Hua Liu (USC), Jason Marden (Caltech), Steve Rassenti (Chapman University), Mihaela van der Schaar (UCLA), Subhash Suri (UCSB), Milinde Tambe (USC), Jean Walrand (UC Berkeley), Simon Wilkie (USC), Leeat Yariv (Caltech), Heather Zheng (UCSB)The organizing committee asks that attendees register as early as possible at http://medianetlab.ee.ucla.edu/SocalNEGT since attendance will be limited to approximately 50 people.If you'd like to present a poster, just indicate so when you register.Location: USC Kerckhoff Hall
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Emissions Market Models and the Price of Carbon
Mon, Oct 05, 2009 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Math Finance Colloquium: "Emissions Market Models and the Price of Carbon"Speaker: Prof. Rene Carmona, Princeton UniversityMonday, October 5, 2009, KAP 414ABSTRACT: The first part of the talk will be of an introductory nature.
Its goal is to show how mathematical models can be used to study cap-and-trade schemes such as the European Union Emission Trading Scheme and those touted for implementation in the US. We shall concentrate on the design of the allowance allocation, and illustrate numerically the effects of taxes and auctions on consumer costs and producer windfall profits.The second part will be of a more "financial mathematics" nature: motivated by the equilibrium models described in the first part, we propose binary martingales as models for the prices of CO2 emission certificates, and we show how options on these certificates could or should be priced. These options are already traded but their pricing (or miss-pricing) is still a mystery for many.BIO: Professor Carmona is the Paul Wythes '55 Professor of Engineering and Finance at Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University. His research.focus lies largely in financial mathematics and statistical analyses. Much of his research has dealt with large-time asymptotic stochastic systems, stochastic partial differential equations and signal analysis, time-frequency analysis and the study of wavelets.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 414
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Reinforcement Learning and Markov Chain Computations, Part I
Tue, Oct 06, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Speaker: Prof. Vivek Borkar, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India Part I: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2-3PM, HED 116 Part II: Thursday, Oct. 8, 2-3PM, EEB 248This two part series shall cover an introduction to reinforcement learning and stochastic approximations, and its application to Markov Chain computations.Part I (Tuesday, Oct. 6) shall highlight the main strands in the reinforcement learning based approaches to approximate dynamic programming for Markov decision processes. In particular, connections to numerical methods for MDPs and convergence issues will be discussed.Part II (Thursday, Oct. 8) will present a novel potential application of reinforcement learning algorithms, viz., for certain matrix computations. It will be argued that these present a hybrid scheme situated between pure Monte Carlo and pure numerical iterative schemes. Various trade-offs and acceleration techniques will be discussed.Speaker Bio: Vivek Borkar is a Professor in the School of Technology and Computer Science at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, where he has been for the last decade. He was formerly Dean of the same school. Prior to TIFR, he was a Professor in the Computer Science and Automation department of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in EECS in 1979. He is well-known for his work in many areas including stochastic processes, mathematical control, game theory and learning. He is the author of several books including a recent book on Stochastic approximations: A Dynamical Systems Viewpoint.Host: Prof. Rahul Jain, 213-740-2246, rahul.jain@usc.edu.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Reinforcement Learning and Markov Chain Computations, Part II
Thu, Oct 08, 2009 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Speaker: Prof. Vivek Borkar, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, IndiaPart I: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2-3PM, HED 116Part II: Thursday, Oct. 8, 2-3PM, EEB 248This two part series shall cover an introduction to reinforcement learning and stochastic approximations, and its application to Markov Chain computations.Part I (Tuesday, Oct. 6) shall highlight the main strands in the reinforcement learning based approaches to approximate dynamic programming for Markov decision processes. In particular, connections to numerical methods for MDPs and convergence issues will be discussed.Part II (Thursday, Oct. 8) will present a novel potential application of reinforcement learning algorithms, viz., for certain matrix computations. It will be argued that these present a hybrid scheme situated between pure Monte Carlo and pure numerical iterative schemes. Various trade-offs and acceleration techniques will be discussed.Speaker Bio: Vivek Borkar is a Professor in the School of Technology and Computer Science at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, where he has been for the last decade. He was formerly Dean of the same school. Prior to TIFR, he was a Professor in the Computer Science and Automation department of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in EECS in 1979. He is well-known for his work in many areas including stochastic processes, mathematical control, game theory and learning. He is the author of several books including a recent book on Stochastic approximations: A Dynamical Systems Viewpoint.Host: Prof. Rahul Jain, 213-740-2246, rahul.jain@usc.edu.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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On the Complexity of Game, Market, and Network Equilibria
Thu, Oct 08, 2009 @ 03:30 PM - 04:45 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering ISE 650 Seminar:"On the Complexity of Game, Market, and Network Equilibria"SHANG-HUA TENG, Seeley G. Mudd Professor Computer Science Department, USC Viterbi School of EngineeringTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009, 3:30PM - 4:45PM, ANDRUS GERONTOLOGY AUDITORIUMABSTRACT: I will present some recent advances in Algorithmic Game Theory. I will focus on the computational equivalence of Nash equilibria for games, Arrow-Debreu equilibria and Fisher equilibria for markets, and fractional equilibria for networks. In additional to worst-case complexity, I will consider the smoothed and approximation complexity of these problems. If time permits, I will highlight some potential computational difference between solution concepts in games and in multi-objective optimization. Joint work with Xi Chen, Xiaotie Deng, Deichen Dai, Ye Du, Li-Sha Huang, Shiva Kintali, Laura Poplawski, Rajmohan Rajaraman, Heiko Röglin, Ravi Sundaram and Paul Valiant.SHANG-HUA TENG is the Seeley G. Mudd Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He has taught as a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics of MIT and in the Computer Science Departments of Boston University, the University of Minnesota and UIUC. He has worked and consulted for Microsoft Research, Akamai, IBM Almaden Research Center, Intel Corporation, Xerox PARC, Cray Research/SGI, Thinking Machine Corporation, and the NASA Ames Research Center. He received dual B.S. degrees in computer science and in electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1985, an M.S. degree in computer science from USC in 1988, and a Ph.D. degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991.He is a recipient of the 2009 Fulkerson Prize (AMS-MPS) and the 2008 Gödel Prize (ACM-EATCS) for his joint work on Smoothed Analysis of Algorithms with Daniel Spielman. He is also an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, a winner of the Senior Xerox Award for Outstanding Faculty Research (UIUC), and a recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award. His recent research interests include computational game and economics theory, spectral graph theory, scientific computing, and mathematical programming. He has received more than ten US Patents for his work on compiler optimization and Internet technology.Hosted by Profs. Elaine Chew and Fernando Ordonez.
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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USC Student Health Council Alumni Panel
Thu, Oct 08, 2009 @ 05:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Thursday, October 8, 2009, 5:30-6:30 pm, followed by a 30 minute networking opportunityLocation TBDPatsy Rincon, Sr. Associate Consultant, Kaiser PermanenteNatalia Rincon, Project Manager, Regional Operations, HealthCare PartnersElizabeth Navarro, Valley Presbyterian HospitalPrub Khurana, VP of Strategy and Planning, Facey Medical Group Guests will be sharing their experience, knowledge relating to residencies, job search, and people skills.RSVP to https://usc.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aaefjPszEVpCsXG&SVID=Prod by October 6 for the location.
Location: To Be Determined
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Optimization Without Derivatives: Consensus and Controversies
Fri, Oct 09, 2009 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Center for Applied Mathematical Sciences Distinguished Lecture Friday, October 9, 2009Reception: 3:00 p.m. - Lecture: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, Leonard Davis AuditoriumTitle: "Optimization Without Derivatives: Consensus and Controversies"Speaker: Margaret H. Wright, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences New York UniversityABSTRACT: Non-derivative methods for optimization have had a sometimes rocky relationship for more than 50 years with applied mathematicians who specialize in optimization. Although practitioners have never wavered in their fondness for non-derivative methods, their mathematical foundations were mostly lacking until the late 1980s. Since then, significant progress has been made concerning theoretical underpinnings, but several perplexing mysteries remain. In addition, there has been continuing and lively controversy about which methods are ``most effective''on real-world applications, with disagreements about both the selection of test problems and the choice of criteria for assessing computational results. This talk will briefly survey the current state of the art, trying along the way to highlight a few of the interesting open questions.
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Auditiroum
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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The Nuclear Express and the Prevention of Nuclear Terror: A Lecture by Thomas C. Reed
Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 07:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University Calendar
Provost C. L. Max Nikias invites you to attend a signature event featuring Thomas C. Reed, co-author of The Nuclear Express. Earlier this year, the National Academy of Engineering identified fourteen "grand challenges" that must be addressed in order to secure and improve the future of humankind. The prevention of nuclear terror topped that list. Reed will focus on why nations pursue nuclear weapons if they possibly can, why over a dozen would-be proliferators have turned back from that path and why a half dozen other embryonic nuclear states continue to forge ahead. The lecture will be followed by a discussion with USC professors Wayne Glass and Priya Vashishta. Thomas C. Reed has been a nuclear-weapons designer, political manager for Reagan's gubernatorial contests, defense official for the secretary of the Air Force and White House staffer (as special assistant to the president for national-security policy) and businessman. He is the author of At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War and The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation. Reed is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Southern California and currently resides in northern California.G. Wayne Glass is a Professor in USC's School of International Relations. He teaches courses on American foreign policy and international security affairs, including a special program on nonproliferation policy conducted each year in Washington D.C. Glass previously had a career in Washington D.C., including positions in the Department of Defense, Department of State, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Congressional Budget Office and the Senate. He is an expert on a wide variety of defense issues including nonproliferation and nuclear arms control.Priya Vashishta is the director of the Collaboratory for Advanced Computing and Simulations. He has multidisciplinary appointments in the Viterbi School of Engineering and College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC. Prior to joining USC, Vashishta was the Director of the Solid State Science Division at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. His research interests include high performance computing and large multiscale simulations of novel materials and processes.Organized by Visions and Voices. Co-sponsored by the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. For further information on this event: visionsandvoices@usc.eduRSVP: http://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/visionsandvoices/RSVP/reserveGeneral_Multi.php?RSVPEvtCode=70
Location: Tower Hall (TOW) - n and Gown
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Swapping Generators Assets: Market Salvation or Wishful Thinking
Fri, Oct 16, 2009 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
DANIEL J. EPSTEIN DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING SEMINAR:Title: "Swapping Generators' Assets: Market Salvation or Wishful Thinking" (Joint work with Tony Downward and David Young)Speaker: Golbon Zakeri, Co-Director of Electric Power Optimization Centre, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, Currently Visiting Scholar at the IEOR Department, UC BerkeleyABSTRACT: In April this year the New Zealand Commerce Commission released a review of the New Zealand Electricity Market (NZEM). This review, commonly referred to as the Wolak report, concluded that there was evidence of exercise of market power in the NZEM and was followed by a ministerial review of the NZEM. Both the Wolak report and the market review suggested a number of structural improvements for the NZEM. The likeliest structural change, suggest by both reviews, is a number of asset swap and divestiture option.I will present a review of the NZEM and the optimization and economic problems arising from it. I will talk briefly about the Wolak report and the background to the suggested structural changes from his report. I will then examine these suggestions in the frame work of simple Cournot models in presence of changing costs and line constraints. I will demonstrate that for our simple examples, these structural changes will achieve the opposite of what was intended!FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009, ANDRUS GERONTOLOGY (GER) 309, 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 309
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Optimization Based Operations Management Problems in the Steel Industry
Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
DANIEL J. EPSTEIN DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING SEMINAR:Title: "Optimization Based Operations Management Problems in the Steel Industry"Speaker: Lixin Tang, The Logistics Institute, Northeastern University, Shenyang, ChinaABSTRACT: The steel industry plays an important role in domestic economy. As a classical process industry, the output of iron & steel industry, China, has held at the first place in the world for continuous 12 years since 1996. The modeling and optimization of operations management problems is a kind of key problem in steel industry. Effective operations management in this industry can significantly improve the product quality, shorten production cycle, decrease work-in-process inventory level, cut down material and energy consumption and reduce production cost. The operations management problems in steel industry are characterized by the following features: high job waiting costs due to hot temperature of jobs, job grouping due to high operating cost of heavy equipment, the processing with real-time requirement for continuous production, logistics with network structure due to complex production technological processes. These features add extra difficulties to tackle operations management problems. In this talk we review the major operation management problems and methods in the steel industry we have been working on during the last ten years. Finally some international leading-edge research directions toward operations management research areas in the steel industry for further research are identified. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2009, HED 116 (HEDCO CHEMICAL ENGINEERING BLDG), 1:30–2:30 PM
BIO: Lixin Tang received the B.Eng. degree in industrial automation, the M.Eng. degree in systems engineering and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and application from Northeastern University, Shenyang, China, in 1988, 1991, 1996, respectively. Currently he is a chair professor of "the Cheung Kong Scholars Program of China", and the director of both the Liaoning Key Laboratory of Manufacturing System and Logistics, and the Logistics Institute at Northeastern University, China. His research interests include operations planning, production scheduling, logistics and supply chain management and combinational optimization. He has published a monograph and more than 60 papers in international journals such as Computers & Operations Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, European Journal of Operational Research, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Control System Technology, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, International Journal of Management Science, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of System Science, International Transactions in Operational Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society. He has received National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, State Youth Science and Technology Award of China, Outstanding Young Faculty Award Program of the Ministry of Education and Fok Ying Tung Education-Foundation Reward.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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EE Practical Guide Seminar
Fri, Oct 23, 2009 @ 11:30 AM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University Calendar
"Reading a Journal Article with a Discerning Eye & How to Conduct a Literature Review"Prof. Sandeep Gupta & Ms. Najwa HanelAbstract: This seminar is to present the "mechanical aspects of searching" using internet databases, and offer tips on how to search the internet, which has become a more reliable tool with the birth of "google scholar." Several databases will be introduced, such as IEEEXplore. Also, a discussion about identifying keywords, author names, etc; how to read papers with a discerning eye and how to represent different perspectives in your work.*Pizza will be provided by the EE Department*
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Presentations on Health Policy and Managed Care by Senior Policy Makers and Analysts
Thu, Oct 29, 2009 @ 01:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
Briefing sponsored by the USC Health Financing Policy and Management Program will provide insights into national, statewide issues.What: Presentation on health policy and managed care by senior policy makers and analysts. Issues to be discussed include national trends in health care and the role and direction of California's managed health care system. When: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 1:00 to 3:30 PMWhere: USC Davidson Conference Center, Figueroa and Jefferson, Los AngelesWho: Lucinda "Cindy" Ehnes, Director of the California Department of Managed Health Care in Sacramento. Ehnes is an attorney with 25 years of legal experience, much of that in the area of health insurance and regulatory lawDavid W. Sayen, Associate Regional Administrator, Medicare Health Plans, Region IX, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), San Francisco. Sayen is responsible for all Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug operations and compliance activity in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific.Richard A. Merkin, CEO and Founder, Heritage Provider Network. Merkin has more than 30 years of experience in the health care field, specializing in managed, coordinated, accountable, patient centric, cost effective health care. Glenn Melnick, Professor, USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development. Melnick is a world-renowned expert in health economics and finance, and director of the USC Center for Health Financing Policy and Management.Additional Information: melissgg@sppd.usc.edu or 213-740-2984.
Location: Charlotte S. & Davre R. Davidson Continuing Education Conference Center (DCC) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Organization and Order
Fri, Oct 30, 2009 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
COMPUTER SCIENCE COLLOQUIUMTitle : "Organization and Order"Speaker: Dr. Alan LevinDate/Time: Friday, October 30, 2009, 10:00 - 11:30 AM Place: Powell Hall of Engineering (PHE) 333ABSTRACT: Organization is a startling and spontaneous macroscopic characteristic. We observe it in nature, and we participate in it socially, economically, culturally, and linguistically. Unfortunately, there appears to be no sound theoretical foundation for organization in nature and organization is often confused with order. By examining modeling assumptions and using system engineering methods, we can clarify the difference between functional and structural models and appreciate how to use them jointly to solve otherwise intractable problems. In doing so we also gain insight into the proper use of the terms organization, order, and emergence.BIO: Alan Levin is currently conducting original research into organization in natural systems. This interdisciplinary program extends traditional physical chemical methods with functional modeling techniques from system engineering. In 2008 Dr. Levin retired after a distinguished career working for TRW and Northrop Grumman Corporation. He joined TRW in 1979, and served in increasingly responsible positions as member of the technical staff, project manager, director of engineering, chief scientist, director of business development, and director of strategy and technology planning for a division with over $1B annual sales. He routinely worked with government, defense industry, commercial, and academic professionals projecting advanced technology needs for future critical missions. Before joining TRW, Dr. Levin taught physical chemistry at Carleton College and conducted original research in nucleic acid chemistry. He graduated with a B.Sc. in Chemistry from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from UC Berkeley.
Location: Charles Lee Powell Hall (PHE) - 333
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
