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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November

  • CENG Seminar

    CENG Seminar

    Fri, Nov 02, 2012 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Diana Marculescu , Carnegie Mellon University

    Talk Title: “Achieving Sustainable Computing Through Energy- and Reliability-Aware System Design”

    Abstract: Electronic system design has benefited from decades of reliable and predictable functionality, but this trend may likely slow down in future technology nodes. Higher power densities and increased thermal requirements have become first class design constraints, while manufacturing process-driven variability increases, therefore affecting overall performance and power costs. Furthermore, emerging devices are affected by decreased reliability which, in turn, may be exacerbated by higher operating temperatures. To support a path toward sustainable computing, a holistic approach toward addressing energy awareness, reliability, and variability at all the levels in the system is required.

    This talk will discuss our work on modeling the effects of process variation at system level and compare and contrast various design styles with respect to their tolerance to process variations and support for increased performance under iso-power conditions. Our results detail how these effects can affect performance, power and thermal profile of systems implemented using classic 2D or advanced 3D integration, how process variations affect the robustness of power management algorithms, and how resource management can be employed to deliver performance increase in multi-core systems. Finally, we unravel the joint effects of decreased reliability and increased variability on system robustness and find unexpected applications of the proposed methodology to non-silicon systems.


    Biography: Diana Marculescu is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her Dipl. Ing. degree in Computer Science from "Politehnica" University of Bucharest, Romania in 1991 and her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from University of Southern California in 1998. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Career Award (2000-2004), an ACM-SIGDA Technical Leadership Award (2003), the Carnegie Institute of Technology George Tallman Ladd Research Award (2004), an ACM-SIGDA Distinguished Service Award (2010), and Best Paper Awards from IEEE Asia South-Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASPDAC 2005), IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD 2008), International Symposium on Quality of Electronic Design (ISQED 2009), and IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems (2011). Diana Marculescu was an IEEE-Circuits and Systems Society Distinguished Lecturer (2004-2005), the Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation (2005-2009) and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist and a Senior Member of IEEE. Her research interests include energy-, reliability-, and variability-aware computing and CAD for non-silicon applications.

    Host: CENG

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Estela Lopez

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Basic Building Blocks of Planning Business Operations

    Fri, Nov 02, 2012 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Bryce Benjamin, Principal, Alta Ventures

    Talk Title: Basic Building Blocks of Planning Business Operations

    Abstract: Bryce Benjamin; Co-Founder of Tech CEO Network, Board Member of Veechi, Inc., Vital Link, Project Possibility; Principal of Alta Ventures; Angel Investor at TechCoastAngels Group; will present "Basic Building Blocks of Planning Business Operations" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Honors Colloquium

    More Info: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jeffrey Teng

    Event Link: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series

    Fri, Nov 02, 2012 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Edgar Sánchez-Sinencio, Texas A&M University

    Talk Title: Multi-Order Harmonic Generation for Linear Oscillators and Wideband Frequency Synthesis

    Abstract: It is presented the evolution of highly linear oscillators based first on Band-pass filter and multi-level comparators. Then by employing harmonic suppression or selective harmonic enhancement to yield besides linear oscillators, also wide frequency range and/or high frequency oscillators with frequency higher than its fundamental.
    Secondly it is presented architectural solutions for the realization of wideband frequency synthesizers. First, we present a new architecture which uses two-step multi-order harmonic generation of a low frequency phase-locked signal to generate wideband mm-wave frequencies. Measurements of a prototype fabricated in 90nm CMOS technology show that using a phase-locked input signal of 1-1.43GHz, the system can provide an output which covers the frequency range of 5 – 32 GHz. This represents a tuning bandwidth of 27 GHz with a tuning range of 146%. The measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset is -116 dBc/Hz and -99 dBc/Hz at 5 GHz and 32 GHz, respectively.


    Biography: Prof. Edgar Sánchez-Sinencio was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He received the degree in communications and electronic engineering (Professional degree) from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, Mexico City, the M.S.E.E. degree from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, in 1966, 1970, and 1973, respectively.
    He has graduated 51 M.Sc. and 39 Ph.D. students. He is a co-author of six books on different topics, such as RF circuits, low-voltage low-power analog circuits, and neural networks. He is currently the TI J. Kilby Chair Professor and Director of the Analog and Mixed-Signal Center at Texas A&M University. His current interests are in the area of power management, ultra-low power analog circuits, data converters and medical electronics circuit design.
    He is a former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II and a former IEEE CAS Vice President–Publications. In November 1995 he was awarded a Honoris Causa Doctorate by the National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics, Mexico. This degree was the first honorary degree awarded for microelectronic circuit-design contributions. He is a co-recipient of the 1995 Guillemin-Cauer Award for his work on cellular networks. He received the Texas Senate Proclamation # 373 for Outstanding Accomplishments in 1996. He was also the co-recipient of the 1997 Darlington Award for his work on high-frequency filters. He received the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Golden Jubilee Medal in 1999. He is the recipient of the prestigious IEEE Circuits and Systems Society 2008 Technical Achievement Award. He was the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society’s Representative to the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society during 2000–2002. He was a member of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Fellow Award Committee from 2002 to 2004. He is currently (2012-2013) a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Circuit and Systems Society


    Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mahta Moghaddam, Prof. Mike Chen

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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  • Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Nov 02, 2012 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Maria Todorovska, Adjunct Research Professor

    Talk Title: The 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake disaster: what could Engineers do to help avoid such disasters in the future

    Abstract: Dr. Maria Todorovska will make a presentation about the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake Disaster followed by a discussion by all present.

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Seminar in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 05, 2012 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Meng Law, M.D., Radiology, Keck School of Medicine

    Talk Title: Neuroimaging in Alzheimer’s Disease: Novel Insights into Cause and Cure

    Biography: Dr. Meng Law’s focus is on neuroradiology and his recent research includes, "contrast media in MR imaging," "applications of diffusion-tensor imaging," "enhancing neuroimaging with nanotechnology," and "PET/MRI fusion."

    Host: BME

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Yield improvement and test cost reduction for TSV based 3D stacked ICs

    Mon, Nov 05, 2012 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Said Hamdioui, Delft University of Technology

    Talk Title: Yield improvement and test cost reduction for TSV based 3D stacked ICs

    Abstract: The industry is preparing itself for three-dimensional stacked ICs (3D-SICs), vertically interconnected by means of Through-Silicon Via’s (TSVs). 3D-SIC is an emerging technology that promises huge advantages such as heterogeneous integration with higher performance and lower power dissipation at a smaller footprint. However, for 3D integration to become a viable product approach, many challenges have to be solved including design, manufacturing and test. The talk will provide first an overview about the opportunities and challenges of 3D-SICs. Thereafter, some major challenges such as yield improvement, test cost reduction and reliability will be addressed in more details. Compound yield is a major concern for Wafer-to-Wafer 3D stacking (used for e.g. dies with similar size such as memories), especially for higher number stacked dies. 3D-SIC test needs complex test flow trade-offs due to e.g. huge different test moments (e.g., pre-bond test, mid-bond test, final test). Finally, Reliability is another concerns that may be caused due to wafer thinning, TSV processing, thermal and mechanical stress, etc.

    Biography: Hamdioui (http://www.ce.ewi.tudelft.nl/hamdioui/) received the MSEE and PhD degrees (both with honors) from the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), Delft, The Netherlands. He is currently co-leading dependable-nano computing research activities within the Computer Engineering Laboratory of TUDelft. Prior to joining TUDelft, Hamdioui worked for Intel Corporation (CA, USA), Philips Semiconductors R&D (France) and for Philips/ NXP Semiconductors (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). His research interests include dependable nano-computing and VLSI Design & Test (defect/fault tolerance, reliability, hardware security, Design-for-Testability, Built-In-Self-Test, 3D stacked IC test, memory test, defect oriented test, etc.).

    Host: Prof. Sandeep Gupta

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 349

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Annie Yu

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  • Mathematics Department Seminar

    Mon, Nov 05, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Christine Shoemaker, Joseph P. Ripley Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering & School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University

    Talk Title: "Surrogate Surface Algorithms for Nonlinear and Global Optimization and Uncertainty Analysis of Computationally Expensive Simulation Models"

    Abstract: Optimization and uncertainty analyses used in conjunction with complex simulation models are important for using models to make predictions based on observations and for finding optimal designs or policies. Often these models can generate objective function surfaces with multiple local minima. Global Optimization and uncertainty analysis typically require a very large number of simulations, often thousands or tens of thousands. However, this number of simulations is not feasible for computationally expensive nonlinear simulation models.

    Our approach is to iteratively approximate the objective function or likelihood function f(x) with Radial Basis Functions (RBF) or other surrogate response surfaces during the search process. Our methods are derivative-free and can find local and global minima. It is this use of previously evaluated points f(xi) that is responsible for great savings in computational time. I will give results that compare these algorithms , including applications to complex simulations for groundwater remediation and carbon sequestration and for uncertainty quantification.

    Related References:
    Wild, S.M. and C.A. Shoemaker, Global Convergence of Radial Basis Functions Trust Region algorithms, SIAM Optimization Jn. , 20, 387-415, 2011
    Regis, R.G., C.A. Shoemaker, “Parallel Stochastic Global Optimization Using Radial Basis Functions,” INFORMS Jn. of Computing, 21 (3), 411-426, 2009.
    Bliznyuk, N., D. Ruppert, C. Shoemaker, ” Local Derivative-Free Approach to Approximation of Computationally Expensive Posterior Densities with Application to Parameter Uncertainty for a Watershed Model, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, (in press 2012)


    Host: Mathematics Department

    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - Room 414

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 06, 2012 @ 01:45 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Philip Zhe Sun, Harvard University & Massachusetts General Hospital

    Talk Title: "Quantitative Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) MRI for Tissue pH Imaging”

    Abstract: Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging is an emerging MRI contrast that is sensitive to dilute CEST agents and micro-environment properties such as pH and temperature. CEST MRI contrast, however, is complex. The experimentally obtainable CEST effect varies with labile proton concentration, exchange rate, T1 and T2. It also strongly depends on the experimental conditions such as RF irradiation power, duration, scheme and magnetic field strength. Recent development of quantitative CEST (qCEST) MRI has enabled improved characterization of the underlying CEST system. Specifically, we have developed empirical solution to quantify CEST MRI, and have optimized/translated endogenous amide proton CEST MRI to image tissue acidosis. We recently demonstrated absolute cerebral tissue pH mapping, which captures heterogeneous ischemic acidosis during acute stroke and the dynamic pH response to normobaric oxygen (NBO) treatment. In summary, CEST MRI is a versatile imaging technique that, once fully developed, will tremendously augment the conventional MRI exams for improved characterization of molecular/cellular changes in a host of diseases including stroke, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

    Biography: Phillip Zhe Sun, Ph.D.*Dr. Sun received his Bachelor of Science degree in technical physics from Peking University in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Radiological Sciences from Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), Harvard and MIT in 2003. His Ph.D. research was in the field of MR diffusion and microscopy, under the mentorship of Professor David Cory. Upon his graduation, he went on to Johns Hopkins University, working with Professor Peter van Zijl, as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then a Research Associate. Dr. Sun joined Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH and Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor in 2007. His research focuses on development of novel MRI techniques for assessing neurological diseases including acute stroke, multiple sclerosis and tumor. Specifically, Dr. Sun has been studying tissue acidosis using quantitative chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI. He is also interested in numerous techniques including tissue glucose and oxygen metabolism, myelin quantification, diffusion/kurtosis, blood oxygen level dependent and magnetization transfer MRI. Dr. Sun has authored/co-authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and fifty conference proceedings/abstracts.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Veal

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  • Epstein Institute Seminar Series / ISE 651 Seminar

    Tue, Nov 06, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jingshan Li, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin at Madison

    Talk Title: "From Manufacturing to Health Care: Lessons and Results"

    Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series

    Abstract: Both manufacturing and health care have significant importance. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in healthcare systems research worldwide to improve efficiency, safety and quality to achieve better patient outcome. In this talk, we will present lessons we learned and results we obtained during our journey from manufacturing system research to health care system study. We will start with a brief overview of Production System Engineering. Then, we will discuss the similarities and differences between production systems and health care systems based on our experience. Next we will describe two recent studies in health care delivery systems: modeling and analysis of rapid response operations in acute care to improve patient safety, and improvement of work flow and staff utilization in CT test center. In addition, we plan to address some difficulties and challenges in health care systems research.

    Biography: Dr. Jingshan Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY from 2006 to 2010, and a Staff Researcher in Manufacturing Systems Research Lab, General Motors Research & Development Center, Warren, MI from 2000 to 2006. He received the BS from Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, the MS from Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, and PhD in Electrical Engineering – Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in 1989, 1992 and 2000, respectively.
    Dr. Li is the co-author of the textbook Production Systems Engineering (Springer, 2009; Chinese edition by BIT Press, 2012), and he co-edited the book Advances in Systems Theory: Control, Communication Networks, Production Systems and Rational Behavior (WingSpan Press, 2009). Up-to-date, he has published more than 50 refereed journal articles, 6 book chapters and 70 peer reviewed conference proceedings. He is the Department Editor of IIE Transactions – Design and Manufacturing, the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and International Journal of Production Research, and was an Associate Editor of Mathematical Problems in Engineering. He has served as the Lead Guest Editor of special issues on “Automation in Green Manufacturing” and “Automation in Automotive Manufacturing” in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and special issue on “Integration of Production System Design and Quality Management” in IIE Transactions. He is also the General Co-Chair of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (Madison, WI, August 17-21) and Co-Chair of 2013 International Conference on Health Care Systems Engineering (Milan, Italy, May 22-25)
    He received the NSF CAREER Award (2010-2015), the 2009 IIE Transactions Best Application Paper Award, 2005 IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering Best Paper Award, 2006 IEEE Early Industry/Government Career Award in Robotics and Automation, and he was in the Finalists of Best Paper Awards of 2009 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering and 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. His paper on simulation of emergency department was among the “Top 25 Hottest Articles in Journal of Emergency Nursing” (July-September, 2010). His primary research interests are in design, analysis and improvement of production and health care systems.

    Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    More Information: Seminar-Li, Jingshan.doc

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Room 309

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • CS Colloquium: Adam Wierman (Caltech): Algorithmic challenges for greening data centers

    Tue, Nov 06, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Adam Weirman, Caltech

    Talk Title: Algorithmic challenges for greening data centers

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Given the significant energy consumption of data centers, improving their energy efficiency is an important social problem.
    However, energy efficiency is necessary but not sufficient for sustainability, which demands reduced usage of energy from fossil fuels. In this talk, I will describe some recent work highlighting the algorithmic challenges associated with "greening" data centers. We will focus on two applications:(i) dynamic resizing within a data center; and (ii) geographical load balancing across an Internet-scale system. In both contexts I will present our new algorithms, which provide significantly improved performance guarantees when compared with the "standard" approaches using Receding Horizon Control.
    Additionally, if time allows, I will briefly discuss the our recent progress toward the implementation and evaluation of these algorithms in HP data centers.


    Biography: Adam Wierman is a Professor in the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, where he is a member of the Rigorous Systems Research Group (RSRG). His research interests center around resource allocation and scheduling decisions in computer systems and services. He received the ACM SIGMETRICS Rising Star award in 2011, and has been co-recipient of best paper awards at ACM SIGMETRICS, IEEE INFOCOM, IFIP Performance, the IEEE Green Computing Conference, and ACM GREENMETRICS. He was named a Seibel Scholar, received an Okawa Foundation grant, and received an NSF CAREER grant. Additionally, he has received multiple teaching awards, including the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT) Teaching Award.

    Host: Minlan Yu

    Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • AME - Department Seminar

    Wed, Nov 07, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Debbie G. Senesky, Assistant Professor in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University

    Talk Title: Micro- and Nano-systems for Extreme Harsh Environments

    Abstract: Wide bandgap semiconductor materials are inherently temperature-tolerant, radiation-hardened and biocompatible which can extend the operation regime of micro- and nano-scale devices to extreme harsh environments (e.g. deep space, subsurface environments, combustion environments, and the human body). In addition, wide bandgap semiconductor materials are often simultaneously piezoelectric, piezoresistive and pyroelectric, which can be leveraged in the design of a multitude of micro- and nano-scale devices such as inertial sensors, bolometers, micromechanical resonators and energy harvesters in a single material layer. In this talk, a review of the advancements in manufacturing technology for polycrystalline thin film, epitaxial thin film and nanowire growth of wide bandgap semiconductor materials is presented. In addition, the compelling results of silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), and aluminum nitride (AlN) device operation at temperatures as high as 600°C will be reviewed. These robust material sets can serve as a platform for the realization of sensor, actuator and electronic systems that can operate and collect data under the most hostile conditions.

    Biography: Debbie G. Senesky received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Southern California in 2001. She received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2007, respectively. From 2007 to 2008, she was a Design Engineer for GE Sensing (formerly known as NovaSensor). From 2008 to 2012, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center developing silicon carbide (SiC) sensing technology for extreme harsh environments. Recently, she has been appointed to the faculty in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University. Her research interests include the development of micro- and nano-scale sensors, wide bandgap electronics and ceramic materials for operation within extreme harsh environments.

    Host: Professor Dravinski

    More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-7-12-senesky.shtml

    Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - Room 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: April Mundy

    Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-7-12-senesky.shtml

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  • Nanophotonics for Solar Energy Harvesting

    Nanophotonics for Solar Energy Harvesting

    Thu, Nov 08, 2012 @ 12:45 PM - 02:00 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mark Brongersma, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University

    Series: Distinguished Lectures Series

    Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ryan Choi

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Radio Telescopes on the Moon: Engineering Challenges

    Fri, Nov 09, 2012 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Joseph Lazio, JPL Astronomer

    Talk Title: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Radio Telescopes on the Moon: Engineering Challenges

    Abstract: Dr. Joseph Lazio, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Astronomer, will present present "Radio Telescopes on the Moon: Engineering Challenges" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium.

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium

    More Info: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Amanda Atkinson

    Event Link: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series

    Fri, Nov 09, 2012 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Curtis Ling, Maxlin

    Talk Title: Founding to IPO: A Perspective on Technology Entrepreneurship and Fabless Design

    Abstract: In the ultracompetitive world of technology startups, what makes the difference between success and failure? What are some of the key factors to creating a profitable, scalable company in the fabless semiconductor space and taking it beyond an IPO? Though this talk cannot provide definitive answers to these complex questions, I will give you a close look at how one fabless company, MaxLinear, started from scratch in 2003, defined and developed its first successful products, became profitable and went IPO six years later with 1.5 rounds of venture funding, and has since continued to innovate and grow in a challenging business environment. We will cover topics such as

    · Precursors leading to starting a technology company

    · The crucial interaction between engineering and marketing in defining products

    · Technical challenges in integrating broadband communication receivers, and

    · Business challenges of scaling a company beyond a tight-knit founding team.


    Biography: Dr. Curtis Ling, is Co-founder of MaxLinear, Inc. and has been its Chief Technical Officer since April 2006 and serves as its Director. Dr. Ling has 18 years of experience in research and product development in the fields of RFIC Design and wireless systems. Prior to MaxLinear, he served as a Principal Engineer at Silicon Wave (now RF Micro Devices, San Diego), where he was responsible for RFIC design of Cable Tuner and Bluetooth SoC products. From 1993 to 1999, Dr. Ling served as a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he established a research program and laboratories in wireless communications and consumer electronics. He has co-authored several publications in technical journals and conferences. He received a BSEE from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

    Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mahta Moghaddam, Prof. Mike Chen

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=898694

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=898694

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  • Astani CEE Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Nov 09, 2012 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prasanth Babu Koganti and Hamed Haddad Zadegan, CE Ph.D. Candidates

    Talk Title: Stable decentralized control of complex dynamical systems

    Abstract:
    In this talk, we present a simple approach to stabilizing control of a complex dynamical system which consists of several mutually coupled subsystems. We develop the control in two steps- First, we define a nominal system, in which the subsystems are uncoupled. This is done by defining nominal subsystems which are obtained by approximating each subsystem based on locally available states only. Stabilizing (nominal) controls are then synthesized for each nominal subsystem which are also optimal. In the second step, we force the actual system (with coupled actual subsystems) to track the trajectories of the controlled nominal system as closely as desired by user, thus ensuring stability. This is achieved by use of a generalized sliding surface controller in conjunction with the nominal controller.

    Second Speaker:
    Hamed Haddad Zadegan, CE Ph.D. Candidate

    Talk: Bayesian approach to Geostatistics and Spatial Prediction





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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Seminar in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 12, 2012 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Justin Haldar, Assistant Professor, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, USC

    Talk Title: Constrained MRI: Signal Processing Methods for Denoising and Sparse Sampling

    Host: BME

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 13, 2012 @ 01:45 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Michael Insana, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Talk Title: "On The Design And Evaluation Of Sonographic Systems For Cancer Diagnosis”

    Abstract: The best-possible performance of any imaging system can be measured using ideal-observer analysis. Comparing ideal performance with that of human observers, it is possible to predict the efficiency of a system for achieving its clinical design goals. Rigorous and objective assessments of imaging quality are now well developed for x-ray and -ray imaging modalities but not for sonography. This seminar summarizes recent work from our group in sonographic instrument design and performance assessment for the task of breast lesion diagnosis.
    First, we define task information using Kullback-Leibler divergence by combining ideas from information theory and acoustic scattering with medical practice. We then define the test statistic of the ideal observer of breast lesions and relate its performance metrics to fundamental engineering properties that describe system noise, image contrast and spatial resolution. We show how unique aspects of acoustic contrast generation present unique challenges to defining the ideal observer and relating its performance to engineering properties. The efficiency of human observers at discriminating lesion features was found to be less than 10% and highly dependent on specifics of the visual task. The greatest loss of task information occurs during the demodulation step of image formation. However adaptive filtering of the echo signals before and after beamforming was found to significantly increase diagnostic information transfer through the demodulator and thus improves the diagnostic performance of sonography for lesion feature discrimination.

    Biography: Michael F. Insana is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Bioengineering at Illinois. He also has appointments in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, where he leads the Bio-Imaging Science and Technology group. His current research interests are to develop new ultrasonic methods for the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of breast cancer. He is also interested in eigenanalysis for sensing cancer-related transitions in cell networks as a basis for developing molecular imaging methods. Mike is a fellow of the IEEE, Acoustical Society of America, the Institute of Physics, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He has been Associate Editor for the IEEE Transaction on Medical Imaging since 1997 and currently chairs that journal’s Steering Committee.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Veal

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  • George A Bekey Keynote Lecture: Dr. Jon Kleinberg

    George A Bekey Keynote Lecture: Dr. Jon Kleinberg

    Tue, Nov 13, 2012 @ 04:00 PM - 07:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jon Kleinberg, Cornell University

    Talk Title: Computational Perspectives on Social Phenomena in On-Line Networks

    Series: CS Keynote Series

    Abstract: With an increasing amount of social interaction taking place in the digital domain, and often in public on-line settings, we are accumulating enormous amounts of data about phenomena that were once essentially invisible to us: the collective behavior and social interactions of hundreds of millions of people, recorded at unprecedented levels of scale and resolution. Analyzing this data computationally offers new insights into the design of on-line applications, as well as a new perspective on fundamental questions in the social sciences. We will review some of the basic issues around these developments; these include the problem of designing information systems in the presence of complex social feedback effects, and the emergence of a growing research interface between computing and the social sciences, facilitated by the availability of large new datasets on human interaction.

    Biography: Dr. Kleinberg's research focuses on issues at the interface of networks and information, with an emphasis on the social and information networks that underpin the Web and other on-line media. His work has been supported by an NSF Career Award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Packard Foundation Fellowship, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and grants from Google, Yahoo!, and the NSF. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

    Host: David Kempe

    More Info: http://www.cs.usc.edu/calendar/csevents.asp?date=11%2F13%2F2012

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

    Event Link: http://www.cs.usc.edu/calendar/csevents.asp?date=11%2F13%2F2012

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  • Improving Features and Models for Automatic Emotion Prediction in Acted Speech

    Wed, Nov 14, 2012 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ani Nenkova, University of Pennsylvania

    Talk Title: Improving Features and Models for Automatic Emotion Prediction in Acted Speech

    Abstract: In this talk I will present our recent work on emotion prediction in acted speech, as well as validation on spontaneous speech.

    We introduce a class of spectral features computed over three phoneme type classes of interest—stressed vowels, unstressed vowels and consonants in the utterance. Classification accuracies are consistently higher for our features compared to prosodic or utterance-level spectral features. Combination of our phoneme class features with prosodic features leads to even further improvement. Further analyses reveal that spectral features computed from consonant regions of the utterance contain more information about emotion than either stressed or unstressed vowel features. We also explore how emotion recognition accuracy depends on utterance length. We show that, while there is no significant dependence for utterance-level prosodic features, accuracy of emotion recognition using class-level spectral features increases with the utterance length.

    We also introduce a novel emotion recognition approach which integrates ranking models. The approach is speaker independent, yet it is designed to exploit information from utterances from the same speaker in the test set before making predictions. It achieves much higher precision in identifying emotional utterances than a conventional SVM classifier. Furthermore we test several possibilities for combining conventional classification and predictions based on ranking. All combinations improve overall prediction accuracy.

    This is joint work with Houwei Cao, Dmitri Bitouk and Ragini Verma

    Biography: Ani Nenkova is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her main areas of research are automatic summarization, discourse, and text quality. She obtained her PhD degree in Computer Science from Columbia University in 2006. She also spent a year and a half as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University before joining Penn in Fall 2007.

    Host: Chi-Chun Lee, Angeliki Metallinou, Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mary Francis

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  • Laufer Lecture Series

    Laufer Lecture Series

    Wed, Nov 14, 2012 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Patrick Huerre, Professor of Mechanical Polytechnic, Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, and Head of the Laboratory of Hydrodynamics (LadHyX), UMR CNRS-School Polytechnic

    Talk Title: AMPLIFIERS AND OSCILLATORS: A HYDRODYNAMIC STABILITY PERSPECTIVE

    Series: Laufer Lecture Series

    Abstract: Complex flows of interest in aeronautical applications may often be considered as involving a combination of simpler prototypical free shear flows such as mixing layers, wakes, jets, etc. which prevail in different spatial subdomains. Such archetypical shear flows are in a turbulent state but they are known to exhibit large-scale vortical structures which dominate the dynamics up to very large Reynolds numbers. Experimental observations indicate that some flows are extrinsic amplifiers of external noise while others are intrinsic oscillators which beat at a specific frequency. In this lecture, such structures will be described as instablity waves living on a suitable mean flow. Hydrodynamic stability concepts such as convective/absolute instability, local/ global instability, will then be shown to account for the extrinsic or intrinsic spatio-temporal dynamics of coherent structures in several shear flows. The classical locally parallel asymptotic analyses and the more recently developed fully non-parallel numerical approaches will be critically assessed.

    Biography: Professor Patrick Huerre received his Ingénieur’s degree from Ecole Centrale Paris in 1970 and his PhD in Aeronautical Sciences from Stanford University in 1976. After postdoctoral work at the University of Leeds with the late Professor David Crighton, he joined the faculty of the department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1978. In 1989 he was appointed Professor of Mechanics at Ecole Polytechnique. Since 1991, he has also been Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Patrick Huerre was the founder and director of the Hydrodynamics Laboratory (LadHyX) at Ecole Polytechnique in the period 1990-2008. Patrick Huerre is President of the European Mechanics Society. He was Associate-Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (1999-2009). He has served on several committees and panels in Europe and in the United States.
    Patrick Huerre is a member of the Académie des Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. His research areas of interest cover a wide variety of hydrodynamic instabilities and transition phenomena in shear flows. His main research achievements include the effective use of absolute/convective instability concepts to rigorously distinguish between amplifiers and oscillators in fluid mechanics, the introduction of the notions of linear and nonlinear global mode and associated frequency selection criteria to account for the dynamics of oscillators and the identification of super-directivity as a key mechanism for the production of sound in shear flows.

    Host: Dr. Geoff Spedding

    More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-14-12-huerre.shtml

    Location: Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library (DML) - Room 240

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: April Mundy

    Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-14-12-huerre.shtml

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  • Toward Understanding Characteristics of Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) for Vehicular Networks

    Thu, Nov 15, 2012 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Fan Bai, General Motors Corporation

    Talk Title: Toward Understanding Characteristics of Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) for Vehicular Networks

    Abstract: IEEE 802.11p-based Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) is considered a promising wireless technology for enhancing transportation safety and improving highway e ciency. We have studied the effects of the mobile vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) channel on the current IEEE 802.11p standard to investigate how readily they can be applied to vehicular networks. In particular, measured parameters for the V2V channel at 5.9 GHz in suburban, highway, and rural environments are studied in the context of critical parameters for OFDM as implemented in the 802.11p waveform. Actual performance of scaled OFDM waveforms with bandwidths of 20 MHz (bandwidth of IEEE 802.11a), 10 MHz (bandwidth of the draft IEEE 802.11p), and 5 MHz (halved bandwidth of IEEE 802.11p) are described and interpreted in light of the channel parameters. At 20 MHz the guard interval is not long enough, while at 5 MHz errors increase from lack of channel stationarity over the packet duration. For these choices of the 802.11p OFDM waveform, 10 MHz appears to be the best choice. On the other hand, we also find that the performance of DSRC standard might degrade in a challenging V2V channel, partly because the IEEE 802.11p DSRC standard is not fully customized for outdoor, highly mobile channels. We develop a set of equalization schemes that are able to closely track the V2V channel dynamics and thus improve performance at the physical layer. Through a set of empirical experiments, we showed that the performance (in terms of Packet Error Rate) could be significantly improved from 39% (using a simple Least Square Estimator) to 17% (using a sophisticated Spectral Temporal Averaging Estimator).

    Biography: Dr. Fan Bai (General Motors Global R&D) is a Senior Researcher in the Electrical & Control Integration Lab., Research & Development, General Motors Corporation, since Sep., 2005. Before joining General Motors research lab, he received the B.S. degree in automation engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1999, and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, from University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 2005. His current research is focused on the discovery of fundamental principles and the analysis and design of protocols/systems for next-generation Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANET), for safety, telematics and infotainment applications. Dr. Bai has published about 50 book chapters, conference and journal papers, including Mobicom, INFOCOM, MobiHoc, SECON, ICC, Globecom, WCNC, JSAC, IEEE Transaction on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine, IEEE Communication Magazine and Elsevier AdHoc Networks Journal. He received Charles L. McCuen Special Achievement Award from General Motors Corporation “in recognition of extraordinary accomplishment in area of vehicle-to-vehicle communications for drive assistance & safety.” He serves as Technical Program Co-Chairs for IEEE WiVec 2007, IEEE MoVeNet 2008, ACM VANET 2011 and ACM VANET 2012. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on Vehicular Technology and IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computing, and he also serves as guest editors for IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine and Elsevier AdHoc Networks Journal. He is also serving as a Ph.D. supervisory committee member at Carnegie Mellon University and University of Illinois – Urban Champaign.

    Host: Andreas Molisch, x04670, molisch@usc.edu

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 322

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • Algorithms For Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning

    Thu, Nov 15, 2012 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Anand Sarwate, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago

    Talk Title: Algorithms For Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning

    Abstract: The large-scale gathering and storage of personal data is raising new questions about the regulation of privacy. On the technology side, there has been a flurry of recent work on new models for privacy risk and protection. One such model is differential privacy, which quantifies the risk to an individual's data being included in a database. Differentially private algorithms introduce noise into their computations to limit this risk, allowing the output to be released publicly. I will describe new algorithms for differentially private machine learning tasks such as learning a classifier and principle components analysis (PCA). I will describe how guaranteeing privacy affects the performance of these algorithms, the results on real data sets, and some exciting future directions.

    Parts of this work are with Kamalika Chaudhuri, Claire Monteleoni, Kaushik Sinha, Staal Vinterbo, and Aziz Boxwala.


    Biography: Anand Sarwate is a Research Assistant Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, a philanthropically endowed academic institute located on the University of Chicago campus. Prior to that he was a postdoc in the Information Theory and Applications Center (ITA) at UC San Diego. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley in 2008, and undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from MIT in 2002. He is broadly interested in statistical algorithms applied to problems in distributed systems, signal processing, communications, and privacy and security.

    Host: Urbashi Mitra, x04667, ubli@usc.edu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • Munushian Visiting Seminar Series

    Thu, Nov 15, 2012 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Connie J. Chang-Hasnain, University of California, Berkeley

    Talk Title: Flat Photonics Using High Contrast Metastructures

    Abstract: A new class of planar optics has emerged using near-wavelength period gratings with a large refractive index contrast. This seemingly simple structure lends itself to extraordinary properties, which can be designed top-down based for integrated optics on a silicon substrate. In particular, the near-wavelength gratings with large index contrast wiht its surrounding materials are referred as high-contrast gratings (HCG). The extraordinary features include an ultra broadband (Δλ/λ>30%) high reflectivity (>99%) reflector for surface-normal incident light. Another feature is a high quality-factor resonance (Q>107) with surface-normal emission. We incorporated HCG as a replacement of conventional distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) over a wide wavelength range from 850-nm to 1550-nm. We also demonstrated high-Q cavity with surface-normal input/output beam using a single HCG layer. This resonator is formed without a Fabry-Perot cavity!
    By varying HCG dimensions, the reflection phase can be changed, which can be used to control the VCSEL wavelength. Most interestingly, a curved wave front can be obtained by locally changing each grating dimension. This leads to planar, single-layer lens and focusing reflectors with high focusing power, or arbitrary transmitted wavefront generator which can be used to split or route light.
    The HCG can be designed to provide reflection and resonances for incident light at an oblique angle as well. A hollow-core waveguide can be made with two parallel HCGs with light guided in-between. The phase of reflection coefficient can be designed such that slow light can be obtained in a hollow-core waveguide. Finally, light propagation can be switched efficiently from surface-normal direction to an in-plane index-guided waveguide and vice versa.
    In this talk, I will review the physical insights of the extraordinary properties and show that HCG can be easily designed using simple guidelines for chip-scale optics.


    Biography: Connie Chang-Hasnain is the John R. Whinnery Chair Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department and Chair of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering (NSE) Graduate Group at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from the same university in 1987. Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty, Dr. Chang-Hasnain was a member of the technical staff at Bellcore (1987–1992) and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University (1992–1996). She is an Honorary Member of A.F. Ioffe Institute, a Chang Jiang Scholar Endowed Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, a Visiting Professor of Peking University and National Chiao Tung University.

    Professor Chang-Hasnain’s research interests range from semiconductor optoelectronic devices to materials and physics, with current foci on nano-photonic materials and devices for chip-scale integrated optics. She has been honored with the IEEE David Sarnoff Award (2011), the OSA Nick Holonyak Jr. Award (2007), the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award for Scientific Achievement (2003), and the Microoptics Award from Japan Society of Applied Physics (2009). Additionally, she has been awarded with a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship by the Department of Defense (2008), a Humboldt Research Award (2009), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009). She was a member of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board, the IEEE LEOS Board of Governors, OSA Board of Directors, and the Board on Assessment of NIST Programs, National Research Council. She has been the Editor-in-Chief Journal of Lightwave Technology since 2007.


    Host: EE-Electrophysics

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Marilyn Poplawski

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  • Sanjoy Dasgupta: Cluster trees, Near-neighbor Graphs, and Continuum Percolation

    Thu, Nov 15, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Sanjoy Dasgupta, UC San Diego

    Talk Title: Cluster trees, Near-neighbor Graphs, and Continuum Percolation

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: What information does the clustering of a finite data set reveal about the underlying distribution from which the data were sampled? This basic question has proved elusive even for the most widely-used clustering procedures. One natural criterion is to seek clusters that converge (as the data set grows) to regions of high density. When all possible density levels are considered, this is a hierarchical clustering problem where the sought limit is called the "cluster tree". We give a simple algorithm for estimating this tree that implicitly constructs a multiscale hierarchy of near-neighbor graphs on the data points. We show that the procedure is consistent, answering an open problem of Hartigan. We also obtain rates of convergence, using a percolation argument that gives insight into how near-neighbor graphs should be constructed.

    Biography: Sanjoy Dasgupta is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. He received his PhD from Berkeley in 2000, and spent two years at AT&T Research Labs before joining UCSD.

    His area of research is algorithmic statistics, with a focus on unsupervised and minimally supervised learning. He is the author of a textbook, "Algorithms" (with Christos Papadimitriou and Umesh Vazirani), that appeared in 2006.

    Host: Shaddin Dughmi

    Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Matt Dreyer (VMWare): Software Defined Data Center: From Best Effort to 99%

    Thu, Nov 15, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Matt Dreyer , VMWare

    Talk Title: Software Defined Data Center: From Best Effort to 99%

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: For over a decade enterprises have been deploying a predictable design pattern for datacenter infrastructure and the applications residing there. Unfortunately this approach has failed to deliver the scale and velocity required by a highly competitive and global economy. The software defined datacenter holds the promise of unlocking application scale and deployment velocity for the next generation of applications.

    Biography: Matt Dreyer is a Group Product Line Manager at VMware with responsibilities for Cloud Consumption products. Prior to VMware Mr. Dreyer was a Product Line Manager at Cisco where he lead the definition and go to market for the ground breaking Cisco ASA 5580 and ASA 5585 data center security appliances. Mr. Dreyer also managed the transformation of the security management product portfolio including Cisco Security Manager and the next generation Cisco Prime Security Manager. Prior to Cisco, Mr. Dreyer held product management positions at Sonicwall and ServGate where he pioneered "Unified Threat Management" firewalls. Mr. Dreyer graduated in from Colorado State University in 1996 with a BSEE degree. Mr. Dreyer has presented security talks at a number of VMware customer and partner events on topics including network security, application security, and security management.

    Host: Minlan Yu

    Location: Social Sciences Building (SOS) - B37

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Honors Colloquium; Project Management and Engineering

    Fri, Nov 16, 2012 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Linton K. Honda, Regional Manager, The Boeing Company

    Talk Title: Project Management and Engineering

    Abstract: Dr. Linton K. Honda, Regional Manager at The Boeing Company, will present as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium.

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Honors Colloquium

    More Info: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jeffrey Teng

    Event Link: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

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  • AME - Department Seminar

    Fri, Nov 16, 2012 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: P. Henrik Alfredsson, Professor Linné FLOW Centre KTH Mechanics Royal Institute of Technlogy

    Talk Title: Rotation Effects on Instability and Turbulence on Simple Shear Flows

    Abstract: Effects of rotation (centrifugal and/or Coriolis forces) are usually felt on large scales (such as planetary scales) or at very high rotation rates such as turbines and compressors. However laboratory scale shear flows may be strongly affected also by quite small rotation rates. In this talk we concentrate on two cases: spanwise rotation of shear flows (here we will focus on plane Couette flow) and axial rotation of circular pipe flow. Both flows show surprising effects of the rotation, in the first case due to the Coriolis force that can either stabilize or destabilize the flow. For stabilizing rotation turbulence may be completely killed, whereas for the destabilizing case a number of different instabilities can be observed. For the axially rotating turbulent pipe flow the symmetry is broken by rotation and the flow will never reach solid body rotation. An unexpected feature occurring if the flow is issued as a swirling jet will also be discussed.

    Host: Dr. Veronica Eliasson

    More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-16-12-alfredsson.shtml

    Location: Room 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: April Mundy

    Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-16-12-alfredsson.shtml

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  • CEE Oral Dissertation Defense

    Fri, Nov 16, 2012 @ 02:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Winnie Kam, ENE Ph.D. Candidate

    Talk Title: PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) EXPOSURE FOR COMMUTERS IN LOS ANGELES: CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND IMPLICATIONS TO PUBLIC HEALTH

    Abstract: Particulate matter (PM) is a major airborne pollutant in urban areas and contributes to adverse health outcomes as well as environmental effects such as visibility. Sources of PM include both anthropogenic (vehicular emissions, industrial activity) and natural causes (crustal materials, sea salt). The composition of PM is highly complex and varies depending on local sources, source strength, and atmospheric processes such regional transport and gas-to-particle partitioning. This thesis focuses on the exposure assessment size-fractionated PM for five different commute microenvironments in Los Angeles: light-rail (METRO gold line), subway (METRO red line), a freeway with high drayage truck fraction (I-710), a freeway with the low drayage truck fraction (I-110), and major surface streets (Wilshire and Sunset Boulevards). Two major sampling campaigns were conducted to collect time-integrated PM for the purpose of a comprehensive chemical analysis including major PM components (organic carbon and elemental carbon), inorganic ions, metals and trace elements, and organic species. Depending on the mode of commute, commuters may be exposed to PM of various species and concentration levels. Thus, understanding the chemical composition of PM for various commute microenvironments is essential in assessing passenger exposure and potential health endpoints associated with PM inhalation.


    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series

    Fri, Nov 16, 2012 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Art Morris, WiSpry

    Talk Title: Programmable RF Solutions for Handsets

    Abstract: Emerging air interface standards are accelerating the multiplication of modes and bands that must be supported in mobile devices. While RF transceivers have leveraged Moore’s Law to achieve rapid scaling in capability for wireless communications, the RF front-end has seen limited integration due to the diverse technologies required to meet the stringent performance requirements and poor scaling due to physical power and wavelength limitations. Programmable/tunable RF front-ends that could break this barrier have been considered for many years but the required technologies to provide sufficient performance at low cost were not available. We present a tunable RF technology platform and early products based on that platform along with early design/prototyping efforts toward the realization of fully programmable RF front-ends.

    Biography: Dr. Art Morris is a technologist who has focused on physical electronics and fields over the past 30 years. His contributions span a wide range of technologies from traveling wave tubes to HBTs and an array of products for markets from power transmission to broadband communication systems. Art has been CTO at wiSpry since its founding in 2002 leading the development of programmable RF products for high-volume markets utilizing integrated MEMS and CMOS. Dr. Morris is a Senior Member of the IEEE and an adjunct professor at NCSU.

    Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mahta Moghaddam, Prof. Mike Chen

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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  • Seminar in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 19, 2012 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Roberta Brinton,

    Talk Title: Bioenergetic Trajectory of Brain and Alzheimer's Disease Risk: A Systems Biology Approach

    Abstract: This event has been CANCELLED.

    Host: BME

    Location: 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 20, 2012 @ 01:45 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Nicole Sieberlich, Case Western Reserve University

    Talk Title: "Novel Non-Cartesian Parallel Imaging Techniques for Rapid MRI”

    Abstract: Magnetic Resonance Imaging is an increasingly powerful tool for medical imaging, but it still suffers from long data acquisition times, especially for rapid dynamic imaging. My group seeks to shorten MRI scan times by combining two powerful acceleration techniques, namely parallel imaging and non-Cartesian imaging. The resulting method, through-time non-Cartesian GRAPPA, can be used to achieve acceleration factors of greater than R=10 for dynamic imaging. This technique is able to accelerate MR acquisitions for many applications; cardiac and abdominal images will be shown to demonstrate the power of through-time non-Cartesian GRAPPA.

    Biography: Nicole Seiberlich is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. The primary focus of her research is fast MRI, with special emphasis on cardiac imaging using parallel imaging combined with non-Cartesian trajectories. Dr. Seiberlich graduated from Yale University with a BS in Chemistry in 2001, and after working as a financial services consultant in New York and Germany for several years, received her PhD from the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Wuerzburg in 2008.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Veal

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  • Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 20, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ram D. Sriram, Chief, Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD

    Talk Title: "Smart Networked Systems and Societies: Research Challenges"

    Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series

    Abstract: We are witnessing a new revolution in computing and communication. The Internet, which has spanned several networks in a wide variety of domains, is having a significant impact on every aspect of our lives. The next generation of networks will utilize a wide variety of resources with significant sensing capabilities. Such networks will extend beyond physically linked computers to included multimodal information from biological, cognitive, semantic, and social networks. This paradigm shift will involve symbiotic networks of people (social networks), intelligent devices, and mobile personalcomputing and communication devices (mPCDs), that will form smart networked systems and societies (SNSS) or cyber-physical social systems (CPSS). mPCDs are already equipped with myriad sensors, with regular updates of additional sensing capabilities. Additionally, we are witnessing the emergence of “intelligent devices,” such as smart meters, smart cars, etc., with considerable sensing and networking capabilities. Hence, these devices – and the network -- will be constantly sensing, monitoring, and interpreting the environment; this is sometimes referred to as the Internet of Things (IOT). The symbiosis of IOT and social networks will have significant implications for both the market for advanced computing and communication infrastructure and the future markets – for nearly 4.5 billion people -- that SNSS will create. In this work, I will discuss the research challenges for SNSS with a specific focus on smart healthcare.

    Biography: Ram D. Sriram is currently the chief of the Software and Systems Division, Information Technology Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Before joining the Software and Systems Division, Sriram was the leader of the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, where he conducted research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems. He was also the manager of the Sustainable Manufacturing Program. Prior to joining NIST, he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. Sriram has co-authored or authored nearly 250 publications, including several books. Sriram was a founding co-editor of the International Journal for AI in Engineering. In 1989, he was awarded a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2011, Sriram received the ASME Design Automation Award for his work on computer-supported collaborative design. Sriram is a Fellow of ASME and AAAS, a member (life) of ACM, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member (life) of AAAI. Sriram has a B.Tech. from IIT, Madras, India, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

    More Information: Seminar-Sriram.doc

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Room 309

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • Seminar in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 26, 2012 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jill McNitt-Gray, Biomedical Engineering & Biokinesiology

    Talk Title: TBA

    Host: BME

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • CS Colloquium: Lixia Zhang: Evolving Internet into the Future via Named Data Networking

    Mon, Nov 26, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Lixia Zhang, UCLA

    Talk Title: Evolving Internet into the Future via Named Data Networking

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: While the Internet has succeeded far beyond expectations, the success has also stretched its initial design assumptions. Since applications operate in terms of data and more end points become mobile, it becomes increasingly difficult and inefficient to satisfy IP's requirement of determining exactly where (at which IP address) to find desired data.
    The Named Data Networking project aims to carry the Internet into the future through a conceptually simple yet transformational architecture shift, from today's focus on where -- addresses and hosts -- to what -- the data that users and applications care about. In this talk I will present the basic design of NDN and our progress over the last couple years.

    Biography: I joined the faculty of UCLA Computer Science Department in 1995/1996. My research at UCLA started with the design of a global scale web caching system, Adaptive Web Caching (AWC) funded by DARPA (joint work with Van Jacobson and Sally Floyd) and the Internet Distance Map Service funded by NSF (joint work with Paul Francis and Sugih Jamin). A direct follow-up to AWC was GRAB, "Reliable and Robust Sensor Data Collection by Gradient Broadcast" funded by DARPA. In parallel, we also did a number of initial IPv6 development projects. Our group was among the first on the 6Bone and implemented the first IPv6 multicast routing protocol, as well as porting vat and sdr to IPv6.

    Since 1998 much of our focus has been on the deployed global Internet infrastructure. My students and I are currently tackling resiliency and security issues in the global routing system and Domain Name System (DNS), and the system challenges in deploying cryptographic protections in global scale open systems such as the Internet. My group has developed several useful tools that are widely used by the Internet research and operational communities, among them are Internet Topology Collection, Link Rank, Cyclops, SecSpider, and the latest addition EyeP, an IPv4 address allocation and usage visualization tool.

    I coined the phrase "middlebox" in 1999, referring to the new components that were not in the original IP architecture but popped up in many places (web proxies, firewalls, NAT boxes). Much to my own surprise, the word was quickly picked up by the community and it is now used everywhere. In 2008 IEEE Network dedicated a special issue on the "Implications and Control of Middleboxes in the Internet".

    I consider myself fortunate to join Internet research early on. During my 8 years of graduate school at MIT, my adviser Dr. David Clark taught me how to think architecturally. My career goal is to help the Internet grow. I am currently leading a 12-campus research project on the development of a new Internet architecture called Named Data Networking (NDN).

    Host: Minlan Yu

    Location: GFS 106

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Classification of Speech Under Cognitive Load

    Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Julien Epps, The University of New South Wales, Sydney,School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications

    Talk Title: Classification of Speech Under Cognitive Load

    Abstract: The estimation of a user’s cognitive load has traditionally involved manual and/or post-hoc approaches such as subjective self-rating, performance measures and reaction time. Recently there has been a movement to automate cognitive load estimation, towards indicators that are sensitive to real time fluctuations in mental load during tasks. Speech is a natural signal to consider, being relatively free of the intrusiveness, inconvenience or privacy concerns associated with other signals such as video, EEG or GSR. Little is known about the effects of cognitive load on speech, however. In this presentation, results from recent investigations into vocal source-related and vocal tract-related parameters will be discussed, and promising system configurations for cognitive load classification will be presented. Finally, a brief overview of related current work on mental state recognition from speech and other methods for cognitive load estimation will be given.

    Biography: Julien Epps is a Senior Lecturer with The University of New South Wales School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. He has a joint position as a Senior Researcher with National ICT Australia (a government research lab), as part of a longer-term project investigating real time, non-intrusive cognitive load measurement using behavioural and physiological signals. In recent years he has worked mainly on the recognition of emotion, depression and cognitive load from speech and on speaker recognition. For example, as part of a funded project based at UNSW, he is investigating methods for dealing with speaker and phonetic variability in the emotion recognition problem.

    Host: Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan

    Location: RTH 320

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mary Francis

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  • Medical Imaging Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 01:45 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Rohan Dharmakumar, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

    Talk Title: "Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent MRI for Ischemic Heart Disease: Current State-of-the-Art"

    Abstract: Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in the Western world. It is estimated that nearly 7 million people are living with coronary artery disease (CAD) in the United States and about half a million people die from it each year. The most common form of CAD leads to narrowing of the coronary arteries (stenosis) resulting in reduced blood flow and oxygen supplied to the heart muscle. Accurate early detection of flow deficits may permit interventional revascularization procedures (pharmacological intervention, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, and/or bypass surgery) to re-establish flow to the hypo-perfused regions. The absence of revascularization increases the risk of sudden cardiac death.
    Accurate non-invasive methods for detecting coronary artery disease are necessary to determine which patients should undergo revascularization therapy. The gold standard for detecting coronary artery stenosis is x-ray angiography with iodinated contrast agent which is expensive, invasive, and does not provide information regarding the functional status of the myocardium, which is perhaps more important than morphological information in treating the disease.

    In order to identify CAD on the basis of functional status of the myocardium, significant research efforts have been devoted to the development of noninvasive methods, but the establishment of such methods remains challenging. Current approaches include computed positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE). PET is a promising method for detecting regional myocardial blood flow differences. However, PET studies are limited by low spatial resolution, limited availability, and administration of ionizing radiation. SPECT imaging is the technique most widely used for detecting both metabolic activity and perfusion. However, like PET, SPECT techniques are also limited by low spatial resolution and/or potentially harmful ionizing radiation.

    First-pass MRI with gadolinium conjugates has been used for assessing perfusion changes due to coronary artery disease. First-pass methods rely on the detection of changes in myocardial perfusion reserve due to coronary artery disease and thus typically require the use of pharmacological stress agents, such as adenosine or dipyridamole. Unfortunately, since these agents impart physical discomfort in patients, the infusion time of the agent is limited to only six minutes. This method is evaluated most commonly using rapid imaging techniques with multi-slice capabilities. While this approach can identify regions of perfusion deficits, the method is limited by inadequate myocardial coverage and sub-optimal temporal and spatial resolution because of the need to capture the first passage of the contrast media at relatively high temporal resolution (1 frame/heartbeat). These limitations can decrease the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity.

    An alternate method for identifying perfusion deficits relies on endogenous contrast mechanism mediated by red blood cells. It is known that magnetic susceptibility of red blood cells is determined by the oxygen saturation (%O2) of the hemoglobin. Differential %O2 of hemoglobin molecules affects the local magnetic field variations in the intra- and the extra-vascular spaces. The changes in field inhomogeneities, due to changes in %O2, are realized as MR signal changes. This is known as blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) MRI and has enabled the detection of regional activation patterns in the brain. The potential benefits of BOLD MRI for detecting global or regional myocardial ischemia due to coronary artery disease were demonstrated over two decades ago. In this talk, I will chronicle the development of myocardial BOLD MRI for characterization of ischemic heart disease over the past decades.


    Biography: Dr. Rohan Dharmakumar obtained his BSc in Theoretical Physiology and Physics, MSc in Mathematics and PhD in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Subsequently he went onto complete a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiac MRI and was appointed as Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at Depts of Biomedical Sciences, Imaging, and Heart Institute and the Associate Director of Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. At Cedars he heads a lab focused on translational cardiac imaging with the specific goal of extending our current understanding of ischemic heart disease using MRI. His research efforts are continually funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH and American Heart Association.

    Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia Veal

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  • Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series

    Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jay Crosson, Ph.D., Senior Health Researcher, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey

    Talk Title: "Implementation and Use of Health Information Technologies in Primary Care Practice Change"

    Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series

    Abstract: Implementation and use of electronic health records (EHR) and electronic prescribing (e-Rx) have been widely recommended to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care delivery in primary care practices. However, recent studies have documented that EHRs in use in ambulatory care have a wide range of available features and that usage of the most advanced features, even among long-time users, is highly varied. Through a series of studies, I have documented challenges faced by clinicians using these technologies including difficulty adjusting work processes for effective EHR use, financial and technical barriers, and the uneven use of key advanced features. This research has contributed evidence that typical EHR usage has not, to date, led to expected improvements in care quality and has identified the need for purposeful redesign of primary care work processes to better integrate use of health information technologies into care delivery. This presentation will focus on four specific areas relating to use of health information technology in primary care practice: 1) why EHR use did not lead to improved diabetes care in a sample of community practices, 2) implementation difficulties in an e-prescribing implementation project, 3) difficulties in measuring EHR use and what this suggests about our knowledge of HIT use in primary care, 4) workarounds in primary care use of EHR technology. The discussion will focus on how these findings can inform primary care practice redesign efforts.

    Biography: Jesse C. (Jay) Crosson is a Senior Health Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, New Jersey where he is currently working on several evaluations of federally-sponsored efforts to transform primary care and reform primary care payment models. Dr. Crosson’s research employs a variety of research methods to focus on the implementation and use of health information technologies in primary care settings and on how use of these technologies affects the quality of chronic illness care. He recently received funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases for a five-year study to evaluate diabetes registry implementation efforts in primary care practices. Dr. Crosson holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and currently serves on the Committee on Advancing the Science of Family Medicine, Health Information Technology Committee and as study chairman of the Translating Research into Action for Diabetes Legacy Study. Findings from his research have been published in over 50 peer reviewed journal articles and in several reports to Congress and federal agencies.

    More Information: Seminar-Crosson.doc

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Room 309

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • CS Colloquium: George Porter: Towards Balanced, Data-intensive Scalable Computing

    Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: George Porter, UC San Diego

    Talk Title: Towards Balanced, Data-intensive Scalable Computing

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: While many interesting systems are able to scale linearly with additional servers, per-server performance can lag behind per-server capacity by more than an order of magnitude. In this talk, we will present Themis, a runtime supporting highly-efficient data-intensive computing. As an initial challenge application for this runtime, we built TritonSort, a highly efficient, scalable sorting system. It is designed to process large datasets with very high throughput (and has been evaluated against as much as 100 TB of input data spread across 832 disks in 52 nodes at a rate of 0.938 TB/min). It is also the winner of the 100TB "Indy" and "Daytona"
    JouleSort benchmarks. In this talk, we will give an overview of the hardware and software architecture necessary to drive this level of efficiency. We then discuss how we have subsequetly generalized our system to support Map/Reduce programming. We believe the work holds a number of lessons for balanced system design and for scale-out architectures in general. Bridging the gap between high scalability and high performance will enable either significantly cheaper systems that are able to do the same work, or provide the ability to address significantly larger problem sets with the same infrastructure.

    Biography: George Porter is a Research Scientist in the Center for Networked Systems and a member of the Systems and Networking group at UC San Diego. He received his B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

    Host: Minlan Yu

    Location: SSL 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • AME - Department Seminar

    Wed, Nov 28, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Paul Macklin, Co-Director of the Consortium for Integrative Computational Oncology (CICO) and Assistant Professor of Research Medicine for the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California

    Talk Title: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities in 3-D Patient-Calibrated Computational Modeling of Cancer

    Abstract: Clinical oncology practice can generate a wide variety of data for patients, spanning molecular profiling, pathology, and radiology, which tend to be used in isolation when planning patient care. There is currently no technique to quantitatively combine these diverse data sources, along with novel in vitro measurements, to improve surgical and therapeutic planning. Similarly, while cancer research generates a staggering wealth of data spanning many scales, these data are generally not integrated into comprehensive models. We are likely missing emergent system-level cancer phenomena and the novel therapeutic targets they represent. In this talk, we will discuss efforts by my lab, the USC Physical Sciences Oncology Center, and the Consortium for Integrative Computational Oncology to solve these issues. With a focus on patient pathology-calibrated breast cancer modeling and multidisciplinary modeling of liver metastases, we will discuss the role for computational modeling in cancer research, encouraging results in quantitatively predicting clinical progression, the implications for making and quantitatively testing biological hypotheses, and the role of computational modeling in facilitating a deeper understanding of biology, pathology, and radiology. More information can be found at MathCancer.org.

    More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-28-12-macklin.shtml

    Location: SSL Room 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: April Mundy

    Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-28-12-macklin.shtml

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  • Viterbi Student Innovation Institute (VSI2) Speaker Series

    Wed, Nov 28, 2012 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Greg Lieberman, President & CEO, Spark Networks

    Talk Title: The Future of Human Relationships and Technology

    Series: VSI2 Speaker Series

    Abstract: As president and CEO of one of the largest dating networks in the U.S.,which includes jdate.com and christianmingles.com,Mr. Lieberman’s talk will include:

    * Insight about how technology and relationship building intersect
    * Descriptions of how people really behave on online dating sites
    * What it takes to run a successful dating venture
    * Future opportunities for building new ventures
    * Lessons learned
    * And lots more..!

    RSVP: http://goo.gl/Iv1Yo

    Host: Viterbi Student Innovation Institute (VSI2)

    More Information: VSI2 Speaker Series .pdf

    Location: Seely G. Mudd, Room 101 (SGM 101)

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Student Innovation Institute

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  • Repeating EventCSI's 30th Anniversary Conference and Celebration

    Thu, Nov 29, 2012

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Keynotes, speakers and panels, Academia and Industry

    Talk Title: CSI’s 30th Anniversary Conference and Celebration

    Abstract: The Communication Sciences Institute (CSI) of the University of Southern California has played a distinguished role in the development of modern communications systems over the past 30 years. With 2 members of National Academy of Sciences, 6 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 4 Shannon lecturers, and numerous alumni that made their mark in the wireless industry, CSI has contributed to one of the most exciting and vibrant areas of engineering.

    The 30th anniversary will be celebrated by a high-quality conference/meeting with distinguished speakers from industry and academia led by two keynotes: famous scientist and entrepreneur, Andrew Viterbi; and alumnus and candidate for IEEE President, J. Roberto B. de Marca. The technical program will be accompanied by a social program that will give alumni and friends the opportunity to connect and exchange memories and ideas about the future. We expect to have 150 participants from all over the US and the world.


    In order to attend this event, you must register.

    Host: CSI Faculty

    More Info: http://csi.usc.edu/csi30

    Location: Charlotte S. & Davre R. Davidson Continuing Education Conference Center (DCC) -

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

    Event Link: http://csi.usc.edu/csi30

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  • CS Colloquium: Josh Reich: Modular Programming for Software Defined Networks

    Thu, Nov 29, 2012 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Josh Reich, Princeton University

    Talk Title: Modular Programming for Software Defined Networks

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: In Software Defined Networks (SDN), a network application comprising many disparate tasks must be converted to a single set of packet-processing rules on network switches. Such rules are specified in terms of low-level hardware-centric operations. Thus, without additional logic, the rules comprising multiple independently written components cannot be composed as these will likely conflict.
    Moreover, such rules inherently encode the details of the particular network topology for which they are written. Today's SDN platforms neither automate the process of composing independently written software components, nor provide abstractions for decoupling irrelevant topological features from core software logic.
    Consequently, network programmers are forced to write monolithic programs tied to particular topologies - an expensive, error-prone process that produces code that is neither portable, nor reusable.

    I will discuss our work to resolve both of these problems. I will introduce novel techniques for synthesizing a set of independent software components into a single coherent network application by providing both series and parallel composition operators. The talk will then turn to decoupling core software component logic from irrelevant topology specifics by providing transformed views of the network to software components. I will demonstrate two such mechanisms: a lightweight labeling technique that enriches the network view with abstracted attributes and a heavier-weight technique capable of hiding topologic detail by presenting views comprising virtualized switches and links.

    Biography: Dr. Joshua Reich is a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Jen Rexford at the Department of Computer Science, Princeton University. He designs and then builds systems to utilize networked infrastructure more easily and efficiently - currently focusing on Software Defined Networks. His other research interests include cloud computing, mobile/wireless systems, and green networks, Joshua was selected as an NSF/CRA Computing Innovation Fellow in the 2011 Cohort. He received Best Student Demo at ACM MobiCom/MobiHoc 2007 and was an ACM SRC Finalist at SIGCOMM 2010. Joshua's dissertation work on scalable P2P virtual machine streaming led to the founding of a startup, Silver Lining Systems.

    Joshua earned his BA (Magna Cum Laude, Mathematics, 2002), MS (Computer Science, 2004), and PhD (Computer Science, 2011) from Columbia University, where he was co-advised by Professors Vishal Misra and Dan Rubenstein. During his PhD studies, Joshua interned with Sandia National Labs (NM and CA), Microsoft Research (Bangalore and Redmond) and Technicolor (Paris).

    Host: Minlan Yu

    Location: SOS B37

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Alexander Sherstov (UCLA): Limits of Multiparty Communication

    Thu, Nov 29, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Alexander Sherstov, UCLA

    Talk Title: Limits of Multiparty Communication

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Communication complexity theory studies the following question: how many bits of communication are required to compute a Boolean function f whose arguments are distributed among several parties, possibly with overlap? Apart from being a natural subject of study in its own right, communication complexity sheds light on various questions in the theory of computing that do not seem to involve communication in any way.

    A function f of basic importance in the area is the so called disjointness function, which evaluates to true when its arguments are sets with empty intersection. The multiparty communication requirements of this function have been actively studied since the late 1980s, with only very partial results available. In this work, we essentially resolve the question in its entirety.

    PAPER URL: http://eccc.hpi-web.de/report/2011/145

    Biography: Alexander Sherstov completed his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, under the direction of Adam Klivans. After a two-year postdoc at Microsoft Research, Sherstov joined the Computer Science Department at UCLA last year as an assistant professor. He has broad research interests in theoretical computer science, including computational complexity, computational learning, and quantum computing.

    Host: Shaddin Dughmi

    Location: SSL 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Astronautical Engineering (ASTE) Seminar

    Thu, Nov 29, 2012 @ 06:30 PM - 07:20 PM

    Astronautical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jim Montgomery, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Talk Title: Implementing the Mars Science Laboratory Terminal Descent Sensor Field Test Campaign

    Abstract: The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) delivered a 900 kg rover to the surface of Mars in August 2012. MSL utilized a new pulse-Doppler landing radar, the Terminal Descent Sensor (TDS). The TDS employed six narrow-beam antennas to provide unprecedented slant range and velocity performance at Mars to enable soft touchdown of the MSL rover using a unique sky crane Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) technique. Prior to use on MSL, the TDS was put through a rigorous verification and validation (V&V) process. A key element of this V&V was operating the TDS over a series of field tests, using flight-like profiles expected during the descent and landing of MSL over Mars-like terrain on Earth. Limits of TDS performance were characterized with additional testing meant to stress operational modes outside of the expected EDL flight profiles. The flight envelope over which the TDS must operate on Mars encompasses such a large range of altitudes and velocities that a variety of venues were necessary to cover the test space. These venues included an F/A-18 high performance aircraft, a Eurocopter AS350 AStar helicopter and 100-meter tall Echo Towers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center. Testing was carried out over a five year period from July 2006 to June 2011. TDS performance was shown, in general, to be excellent over all venues. This presentation describes the planning, design, and implementation of the field test campaign plus results and lessons learned.

    Biography: Dr. Jim Montgomery received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1986 and a Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 1992 and 1999, respectively. He received his dream job exploring the universe when he joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2000 and has been a member of the Mars Science Laboratory team since 2006.

    Host: Dr. Anita Sengupta

    Location: THH 108

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ana Olivares

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  • Astronautical Engineering (ASTE) Seminar

    Thu, Nov 29, 2012 @ 06:30 PM - 07:20 PM

    Astronautical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jim Montgomery, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Talk Title: Implementing the Mars Science Laboratory Terminal Descent Sensor Field Test Campaign

    Abstract: The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) delivered a 900 kg rover to the surface of Mars in August 2012. MSL utilized a new pulse-Doppler landing radar, the Terminal Descent Sensor (TDS). The TDS employed six narrow-beam antennas to provide unprecedented slant range and velocity performance at Mars to enable soft touchdown of the MSL rover using a unique sky crane Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) technique. Prior to use on MSL, the TDS was put through a rigorous verification and validation (V&V) process. A key element of this V&V was operating the TDS over a series of field tests, using flight-like profiles expected during the descent and landing of MSL over Mars-like terrain on Earth. Limits of TDS performance were characterized with additional testing meant to stress operational modes outside of the expected EDL flight profiles. The flight envelope over which the TDS must operate on Mars encompasses such a large range of altitudes and velocities that a variety of venues were necessary to cover the test space. These venues included an F/A-18 high performance aircraft, a Eurocopter AS350 AStar helicopter and 100-meter tall Echo Towers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center. Testing was carried out over a five year period from July 2006 to June 2011. TDS performance was shown, in general, to be excellent over all venues. This presentation describes the planning, design, and implementation of the field test campaign plus results and lessons learned.

    Biography: Dr. Jim Montgomery received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1986 and a Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 1992 and 1999, respectively. He received his dream job exploring the universe when he joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2000 and has been a member of the Mars Science Laboratory team since 2006.

    Host: Dr. Anita Sengupta

    More Information: ASTE Seminar (ASTE 330 - 11.29.12).pdf

    Location: THH 108

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ana Olivares

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  • Repeating EventCSI's 30th Anniversary Conference and Celebration

    Fri, Nov 30, 2012

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Keynotes, speakers and panels, Academia and Industry

    Talk Title: CSI’s 30th Anniversary Conference and Celebration

    Abstract: The Communication Sciences Institute (CSI) of the University of Southern California has played a distinguished role in the development of modern communications systems over the past 30 years. With 2 members of National Academy of Sciences, 6 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 4 Shannon lecturers, and numerous alumni that made their mark in the wireless industry, CSI has contributed to one of the most exciting and vibrant areas of engineering.

    The 30th anniversary will be celebrated by a high-quality conference/meeting with distinguished speakers from industry and academia led by two keynotes: famous scientist and entrepreneur, Andrew Viterbi; and alumnus and candidate for IEEE President, J. Roberto B. de Marca. The technical program will be accompanied by a social program that will give alumni and friends the opportunity to connect and exchange memories and ideas about the future. We expect to have 150 participants from all over the US and the world.


    In order to attend this event, you must register.

    Host: CSI Faculty

    More Info: http://csi.usc.edu/csi30

    Location: Charlotte S. & Davre R. Davidson Continuing Education Conference Center (DCC) -

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    View All Dates

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

    Event Link: http://csi.usc.edu/csi30

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  • Lean Six Sigma White Belt

    Fri, Nov 30, 2012 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Talk Title: Lean Six Sigma White Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    Lean Six Sigma White Belt (formerly: Introduction to Lean Six Sigma) class will introduce you to the tools and techniques for implementing lean principles. Participants will gain a broad understanding of the philosophy, methods and benefits of lean and value stream mapping as they apply to all types of enterprises. You will be introduced to lean concepts via hands-on exercises. This course is offered both on-campus and online.

    A lean enterprise views itself as part of an extended value chain, focusing on the elimination of waste between you and your suppliers and you and your customers. This seminar is the first step in learning the principles of lean. The instructors for this course have extensive experience implementing lean principles worldwide. This seminar will teach you the history and basics of lean and demonstrate why these practices have such a significant impact on operations. The live course features an interactive simulation that illustrates lean principles.

    Course Topics
    * Cellular flow
    * 5S
    * Lean and Six Sigma
    * SMED
    * Value stream mapping
    * Waste reduction

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Identify and eliminate waste within operations
    * Interpret a value stream map
    * Manage a lean process transformation

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $545
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $445

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.

    Online Participant (Archive Access for 30 Days): $300

    Includes course materials available for download and viewable archive of lecture for 30 days.

    Reduced rates are available for USC alumni and Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) members. Please contact professional@mapp.usc.edu for more information.

    Location
    Three course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus, online with interactivity, and online with archive access:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants – unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live – with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Online (Archive Access) Course is available for online viewing for a period of 30 days. Participants have the flexibility of watching the course at their own pace and convenience - there is no interaction with the instructor or fellow participants. CEUs and a Certificate of Completion are available. Registration must occur by first day of course and access to course and materials is for 30 days.

    Overview of online (archive access):

    * Online archive students view an archive of the course – which includes course documents and streaming video of the lecture.
    * This option is for content only – participants are unable to interact with the faculty and class participants. If prospective participants have specific questions or need interaction with the faculty member, they should not register for this option.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 0.7 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Registration Information
    To register for this upcoming course, please visit the Lean Six Sigma White Belt Registration Form.

    More info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/leansixsigmawhitebelt

    Host: Professional Programs

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Honors Colloquium; Radar Observations and How We Use Them

    Fri, Nov 30, 2012 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Dragana Perkovic, Radar System Engineer, JPL

    Talk Title: Radar Observations and How We Use Them

    Abstract: Dr. Dragana Perkovic, Radar System Engineer at JPL, will be giving a talk as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Honors Colloquium.

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Honors Program

    More Info: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jeffrey Teng

    Event Link: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/honors/schedules/

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series

    Fri, Nov 30, 2012 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Shouleh Nikzad, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Talk Title: High Performance Imagers, Detectors, and Devices for Applications in Cosmology, Planetary Studies, & More….

    Abstract: New discoveries about our universe historically have accompanied advances in observational technology. Galileo’s telescope and the discoveries enabled by that technology are a prime example of such accompaniment and dependence. Pushing the boundaries in space exploration requires new technologies to enable fundamental discoveries in cosmology, astrophysics, and life detection. An essential component of these missions will be detectors with exceptional stability, sensitivity, and resolution.
    Semiconductor detectors offer a rich spectral range, tailorable spectral response, high resolution, and sensitivity; however, these capabilities are not often available in a single material or class of materials. For example, while silicon imagers have reached amazing performance levels in terms of format, pixel size, and signal to noise, they are typically blind to ultraviolet light.
    Using non-equilibrium processes such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), we can manipulate materials at nanometer scale, form unusual and quantum structures, and alter bandstructure. In this talk, I will discuss our work on use of MBE and atomic layer deposition (ALD) to develop high quantum efficiency ultraviolet, visible, and near IR silicon detector arrays, form high stability III-nitride photocathodes, and fabricate quantum dots for the end purpose of understanding stars, galaxies, planets, and our universe. We strive for understanding, both in the realm of semiconductors and in aiding cosmology, astrophysics, and planetary sciences. I will also briefly discuss applications to medical and other fields.


    Biography: Shouleh Nikzad is A Senior Research Scientist, a Principal Member of Staff and a Technical Group Supervisor for the Advanced UV/Visible/Near IR Detector Arrays, Advanced Imaging Systems, and Nansociences Group at JPL. She received her BS in Electrical Engineering from USC and her MS in EE and PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech. Her current research interests include high performance UV/Visible/NIR imaging arrays using silicon and III-nitride materials, low-energy particle detector arrays, high stability photocathodes, quantum dot-based devices, novel detector concepts, and advanced UV/Optical instrument technologies. In her tenure at JPL, she has initiated, developed, and managed successful detector and device programs. Along with her research group at JPL, Dr. Nikzad has pioneered non-equilibrium crystal growth techniques to manipulate and modify the bandstructure of devices to produce high sensitivity, high resolution, low noise, UV/Optical/NIR imagers. She holds more than 10 US patents and has over 50 publications. She has presented her work as invited talks and in book chapters and has received awards for her work including the Lew Allen Award for Excellence, the Space Act Award, and the TAP Honor Award.

    Dr. Nikzad has held joint visiting faculty appointments at Caltech Applied Physics Department and at the USC Keck School of Medicine. She is currently a Visiting Scientist with the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Visiting Faculty Associate at Caltech’s Division of Physics, Math, and Astronomy. She serves on various boards including Board Of Director of the SBMT (Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics) Society/ Foundation and the editorial board of the special issue of the NeuroImage. She co lead a 2012 study funded by the Keck Institute for Space Studies for innovations to enable the next generation ultraviolet instruments. This year, Dr. Nikzad was honored by her election as a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).


    Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mahta Moghaddam, Prof. Mike Chen

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

    Location: EEB 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Hossein Hashemi

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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  • Astani CEE Seminar

    Fri, Nov 30, 2012 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Robert. Glass, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque

    Talk Title: Designing Influence in Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems or CASoS Engineering

    Abstract:
    Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems, or CASoS, are ubiquitous: they include people, organizations, cities, infrastructure, government, ecosystems, the planet – in short, nearly everything that includes biological and human systems. CASoS Engineering entails designing ways of influencing CASoS, or in context of many socio-technical systems, the design of institutions, technology, infrastructure and policy. Foundational to the design process is the use of models that conceptualize the system of interest and render it in a mathematical form that allows computational simulation to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of alternatives. In this talk, I will introduce critical structural and behavioral features of CASoS, a conceptual lens for modeling them, and show several example applications of CASoS Engineering (some complete, some ongoing) pulled from those found on http://www.sandia.gov/CasosEngineering/ ranging from the design of community mitigation of pandemic influenza, to the control of large value payment systems (how all our money moves across the globe), to the design of national security measures that increase (not decrease!) trans spectrum global prosperity.


    Host: Dr. Patrick Lynett

    Location: SHL 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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