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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Mon, Nov 01, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality. As a Six Sigma green belt, you will be equipped to support and champion Six Sigma implementation in your organization. To earn the Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, you will be required to pass the Institute of Industrial Engineer's green belt exam (administered on the final day of the course).During this course you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned to an actual issue you face in your organization. Prior seminar participants have reported significant savings from implementing their projects.
Location: USC Campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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BME 533 - Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 01, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Natasha Leporé, Department of Radiology, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
Talk Title: Methods for group analyses of brain magnetic resonance data
Host: Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
More Info: http://bme.usc.edu/assets/007/71621.pdfLocation: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: BME graduate students, Faculty, contact department if interested (213-740-7237)
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Event Link: http://bme.usc.edu/assets/007/71621.pdf
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Active Sequential Hypothesis Testing
Mon, Nov 01, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tara Javidi, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: Active Sequential Hypothesis Testing
Abstract: Active sequential hypothesis testing problem arises in a broad
spectrum of applications in cognition, communications, design of
experiments, and sensor management. In all of these applications, a decision
maker is responsible to take actions dynamically so as to enhance
information about an underlying phenomena of interest in a speedy manner
while accounting for the cost of communication, sensing, or data collection.
In particular, due to the sequential nature of the problem, the decision
maker relies on his current information state to constantly (re-)evaluate
the trade-off between the precision and the cost of various actions.
In this work, we first discuss active sequential hypothesis testing as a
partially observable Markov decision problem. In particular, we provide a
brief survey of the design of experiment literature and the dynamic
programming interpretation of information utility introduced by De Groot.
Using Blackwell ordering, we, then, connect this stochastic control
theoretic notion of information utility to the concept of stochastic
degradation and uncertainty reduction in information theory.
Finally, we discuss the dynamics and expected drift of log-likelihood,
entropy, and probability of error as well as their connection to
Kullback-Leibler divergence and mutual information in order to approximate
the optimal value function (i.e. the solutions to the DP). We then utilize
these value function approximations (lower bounds) to provide simple
sequential test strategies (heuristic) whose performance is numerically
compared to the optimal policies. In addition, we recover the asymptotic
optimality of a class of test strategies which includes Burnashev's coding
scheme in the context of variable-length block coding over memoryless
channels with feedback.
This is joint work with Ofer Shayevitz and Mohammad Naghshvar.
Biography: Tara Javidi studied electrical engineering at Sharif University
of Technology, Tehran, Iran from 1992 to 1996. She received the MS degrees
in electrical engineering (systems), and in applied mathematics
(stochastics) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1998 and 1999,
respectively. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer
science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2002.
From 2002 to 2004, she was an assistant professor at the Electrical
Engineering Department, University of Washington, Seattle. She joined
University of California, San Diego, in 2005, where she is currently an
associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Tara Javidi was a Barbour Scholar during 1999-2000 academic year and
received an NSF CAREER Award in 2004. Her research interests are in
communication networks, stochastic resource allocation, stochastic control
theory, and wireless communications.
Host: Prof. Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, x0-4667
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Tue, Nov 02, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality. As a Six Sigma green belt, you will be equipped to support and champion Six Sigma implementation in your organization. To earn the Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, you will be required to pass the Institute of Industrial Engineer's green belt exam (administered on the final day of the course).During this course you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned to an actual issue you face in your organization. Prior seminar participants have reported significant savings from implementing their projects.
Location: USC Campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Wed, Nov 03, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Learn how to integrate principles of business, statistics and engineering to achieve tangible results. Master the use of Six Sigma to quantify the critical quality issues in your company. Once the issues have been quantified, statistics can be applied to provide probabilities of success and failure. Six Sigma methods increase productivity and enhance quality. As a Six Sigma green belt, you will be equipped to support and champion Six Sigma implementation in your organization. To earn the Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, you will be required to pass the Institute of Industrial Engineer's green belt exam (administered on the final day of the course).During this course you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned to an actual issue you face in your organization. Prior seminar participants have reported significant savings from implementing their projects.
Location: USC Campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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Forecasting Earthquake Ground Motions Using Large-Scale Numerical Simulations
Wed, Nov 03, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Thomas H. Jordan, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, USC, Director, Southern California Earthquake Center
Talk Title: Forecasting Earthquake Ground Motions Using Large-Scale Numerical Simulations
Abstract: The seismic radiation from complex fault ruptures in 3D crustal structures can now be numerically simulated for the largest earthquakes at frequencies of engineering interest. An interdisciplinary team of SCEC scientists recently achieved a milestone dubbed M8, the dynamic-rupture simulation of a magnitude-8, wall-to-wall earthquake on southern San Andreas fault up to seismic frequencies of 2-Hz. M8 was calculated on a computational grid of 436 billion elements; the production run sustained 220 teraflops for 24 hours on 223K cores of the NCCS Jaguar supercomputer. I will describe SCEC efforts to use such simulations in forecasting strong ground motions in Southern California, focusing on the CyberShake computational platform. In the CyberShake 1.0 hazard model for the Los Angeles region, about 440,000 earthquake simulations have been used to represent the probabilistic seismic hazard up to 0.3 Hz. The hazard maps are substantially different from those derived from empirical ground-motion prediction equations. At the probability levels appropriate for long-term forecasting, these differences are most significant (and worrisome) in sedimentary basins, where the regional seismic risk is concentrated. The higher basin amplifications obtained by CyberShake are due to the strong coupling between rupture directivity and basin-mode excitation. The simulations show that this coupling is enhanced by the tectonic branching structure of the San Andreas system. Large-scale simulations are being used in several other applications: (a) operational earthquake forecasting, which provides short-term earthquake probabilities using statistical models of seismic triggering and clustering; (b) earthquake early warning, which attempts to predict imminent shaking during an on-going event; and (c) post-earthquake information, including high-resolution maps of seismic shaking intensities needed for emergency response immediately following a large earthquake. These applications offer new (and urgent) computational challenges, including requirements for robust, on-demand supercomputing and access to very large data sets.
Host: Prof. Jean-Pierre Bardet
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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AME Department Seminar
Wed, Nov 03, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kirk Dotson , Structural Dynamics Department/Structural Mechanics Subdivision
Talk Title: Fluid-Structure Interaction In Launch Vehicle Feedlines During Boost Phase of Flight
Abstract: In structural modeling of launch vehicles, liquid propellant is sometimes rigidly attached to feedline walls. This assumption precludes the interaction of structural modes with propellant pressure and flow. An analysis of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) for the Atlas V launch vehicle revealed that structural models with rigidly-attached propellant yield unconservative response predictions under some conditions. In particular, during the maximum acceleration time of flight, pressure oscillations acting at bends in the Atlas V liquid oxygen feedline excite 15-20 Hz structural modes that have considerable gain on the feedline and at the spacecraft interface. The investigation also revealed that the venting of gas from the pogo accumulator is an excitation source and changes the dynamic characteristics of the hydraulic system. The FSI simulation produced during the investigation can be adapted to mission-specific conditions, such that responses and loads are conservatively predicted for any Atlas V flight.
Host: Professor Geoffrey Speding
More Info: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-3-10-dotson.shtmlLocation: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - , Room 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/11-3-10-dotson.shtml
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Seminar by Dr. Michael Fritze
Thu, Nov 04, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Michael Fritz, USC Information Sciences Institute
Talk Title: New Research Opportunities Enabled by Fabless Access to Foundry Technologies
Abstract: The tremendous progress in electronics we have experienced over the past several decades has been enabled to a large extent by fables access to advanced foundry CMOS technologies. By abstracting the details of the fabrication process into a set of âdesign rulesâ supported by accurate models, large sets of creative designers were able to access the powerful capabilities of an advanced CMOS fabrication technology. The USC-ISI âMOSISâ organization was one of the pioneers in this area through its introduction of cost-sharing access to CMOS using the âmulti-projectâ fabrication service paradigm.
It is now time to extend this paradigm of fables access to chip fabrication technologies beyond conventional CMOS. Traditional scaling approaches that have enabled âMoores Lawâ progress in the past are beginning to run out of steam. Disruptive new technologies are emerging including 3DIC, photonics, compound semiconductors, non-volatile memories and carbon electronics to name just a few. This talk will discuss the unique challenges of implementing a fables access model for these novel technologies analogous to the one being used for standard CMOS today. Some of the unique challenges in achieving such a goal along with some potential new research directions enabled by such a new foundry access model will also be discussed.
Biography: Mike Fritze obtained a PhD from Brown University in 1992. After a postdoc in the Advanced Photonics Group at Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, he joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he conducted research associated with enhancements to optical lithography resolution, silicon on insulator transistors, and silicon on insulator integrated optics. From 2006 to 2010 he was a DARPA program manager with initiatives in low-power electronics, micro-fabrication, and RF-Electronics. In 2010 he became Director of the Disruptive Electronics Division of the Information Sciences Institute at USC.
Host: Dr. Levi
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Photonics Seminar Series
Thu, Nov 04, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Koray Aydin, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Extending the Photonics Toolbox with Plasmonic Super Absorbers and Active Optical Metamaterials
Abstract: Plasmonic nanostructures and metamaterials are poised to revolutionize optical engineering by overcoming fundamental challenges in optical materials. Dr. Aydin will first introduce ultrathin plasmonic super absorbers consisting of reflective metals and transparent dielectric and enabling broadband, polarization-independent resonant light-absorption. Plasmonic super absorbers could find applications for light harvesting and photon management in photovoltaic and thermophotovoltaic cells. Then, Dr. Aydin will present the first experimental demonstration of active infrared metamaterials composed of hybrid metal-vanadium dioxide (VO2) split-ring resonators. Drastic changes in the optical properties of VO2 with the phase transition enable control over the transmission and reflection properties of nanophotonic structures. Finally, Dr. Aydin will introduce tunable, stretchable optical metamaterials that enable resonant line-width tuning and amplitude modulation of metamaterial and Fano resonances upon applying mechanical actuation to the polymeric metamaterial. This device is the first mechanically tunable metamaterial in the near infrared, where modifying the distance between coupled resonator elements drastically changes the resonance frequency by a line-width (~400 nm). At the end, Dr. Aydin will propose reconfigurable bio-sensors that relies on the active control of the metamaterial substrates for field-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy.
Biography: Koray Aydin is currently a postdoctoral research scholar in Applied Physics at California Institute of Technology. Dr. Aydinâs research in the group of Harry Atwater has focused on the experimental and theoretical investigation of active plasmonic nanostructures and metamaterials and their applications in solar energy conversion and bio-sensing. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Department of Physics at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey under the supervision of Ekmel Ozbay. During his PhD, he investigated the novel electromagnetic phenomena, such as negative refraction, superlensing and enhanced transmission, in microwave metamaterials and photonic crystals. Dr. Aydin has authored more than 45 SCI-Index journal publications that are cited more than 1300 times. He is a member of the professional societies of OSA, APS, IEEE, MRS and SPIE and the recipient of 2007 SPIE Educational Scholarship.
Host: Prof. Povinelli, and Jing Ma
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jing Ma
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/
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Sparsity-Cognizant Total Least-Squares for Perturbed Compressive Sampling
Thu, Nov 04, 2010 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Geert Leus, Delft University of Technology
Talk Title: Sparsity-Cognizant Total Least-Squares for Perturbed Compressive Sampling
Abstract: Solving linear regression problems based on the total
least-squares (TLS) criterion has well-documented merits in various
applications, where perturbations appear both in the data vector as well as
in the regression matrix. However, existing TLS approaches do not account
for sparsity possibly present in the unknown vector of regression
coefficients. On the other hand, sparsity is the key attribute exploited by
modern compressive sampling and variable selection approaches to linear
regression, which include noise in the data, but do not account for
perturbations in the regression matrix. In this presentation, we fill this
gap by formulating and solving TLS optimization problems under sparsity
constraints. Near-optimum and reduced-complexity suboptimum sparse (S-) TLS
algorithms are developed to address the perturbed compressive sampling (and
the related dictionary learning) challenge, when there is a mismatch between
the true and adopted bases over which the unknown vector is sparse. The
novel S-TLS schemes also allow for perturbations in the regression matrix of
the least-absolute selection and shrinkage selection operator (Lasso), and
endow TLS approaches with ability to cope with sparse, under-determined
errors-in-variables models. Interesting generalizations can further exploit
prior knowledge on the perturbations to obtain novel weighted and structured
S-TLS solvers. Analysis and simulations demonstrate the practical impact of
S-TLS in calibrating the mismatch effects of contemporary grid-based
approaches to cognitive radio sensing, and robust direction-of-arrival
estimation using antenna arrays.
Biography: Geert Leus was born in Leuven, Belgium, in 1973. He received the
electrical engineering degree and the PhD degree in applied sciences from
the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in June 1996 and May 2000,
respectively. He has been a Research Assistant and a Postdoctoral Fellow of
the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders, Belgium, from October 1996 till
September 2003. During that period, Geert Leus was affiliated with the
Electrical Engineering Department of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium. Currently, Geert Leus is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science of the Delft
University of Technology, The Netherlands. During the summer of 1998, he
visited Stanford University, and from March 2001 till May 2002 he was a
Visiting Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Minnesota. His
research interests are in the area of signal processing for communications.
Geert Leus received a 2002 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best
Paper Award and a 2005 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award. He
is the Chair of the IEEE Signal Processing for Communications Technical
Committee, and an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing and the EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing. In the
past, he has served on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Signal Processing
Letters and the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
Host: Prof. Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, x0-4667
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Sixth Annual Student Research Symposium
Fri, Nov 05, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 03:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract: Location:
Grand Ballroom
Radisson Midtown Los Angeles
3540 South Figueroa Street
Adjacent to the USC Campus
Oral Presentations: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Lunch and Poster Session: 12:15 pm - 2:30 pm
Awards ceremony: 2:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Host: Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
More Info: http://chems.usc.edu/research/student-research-symposium.htmAudiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce
Event Link: http://chems.usc.edu/research/student-research-symposium.htm
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Engineering Honors Colloquium
Fri, Nov 05, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Rosanne Yetemian, Abbott Medical Optics, Inc.
Talk Title: Abbott Medical Optics: The Vision of Regulatory Affairs in the Medical Devise Industry
Host: W.V.T Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Nov 05, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Patrick Chiang, Oregon State
Talk Title: Sustainable Silicon:Energy-Efficient VLSI Interconnects
Host: Prof. Hashemi
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hossein Hashemi
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BME 533 - Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 08, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gerald Loeb, Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
Talk Title: Biomimetic Tactile Sensing for Prosthetic and Robotic Hands
Host: Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: BME graduate students, Faculty, contact department if interested (213-740-7237)
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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The acoustics and acoustical design of Walt Disney Concert Hall
Mon, Nov 08, 2010 @ 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yasuhisa Toyota, Chief Acoustician and President of Nagata Acoustics, USA
Talk Title: A lecture/presentation on the acoustics and acoustical design of Walt Disney Concert Hall followed by a Q&A with Mr. Toyota
Abstract: One of the worldâs foremost acousticians, Yasuhisa Toyota has served as project chief and chief acoustician on major concert hall projects across the globe, engineering some of the most acoustically esteemed spaces built in the last half of the twentieth century. His high-profile projects, among them Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan, have received high international praise.
Host: Thornton School of Music, co-host Elaine Chew, Viterbi School
Location: Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library (DML) - 240
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Eric Mankin
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CS Colloquium
Tue, Nov 09, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shaddin Dughmi, Stanford University
Talk Title: How to Compute in a Selfish Society: Randomness May be the Key
Abstract: Algorithmic Mechanism Design is concerned with solving computational problems in situations where essential problem data is being held privately by selfish agents. Techniques from economics have long existed for aligning the incentives of the agents with the social good, yet they often require solving a hard optimization problem exactly. On the other hand, computer scientists have coped with intractability by designing approximation algorithms. Unfortunately, recent results have demonstrated that these two approaches are fundamentally at odds for deterministic mechanisms: combining truthfulness and polynomial-time computation results in an inevitable deterioration of the approximation ratio for many important problems.
Fortunately, there is hope: randomized mechanisms are emerging that reconcile computational and economic constraints, yielding optimal approximate mechanisms for problems where deterministic mechanisms provably fail. In this talk, I will advocate randomized mechanism design by taking a tour through a sequence of our recent results. I will illustrate the power of randomized mechanisms by: (1) Overviewing recent positive results for paradigmatic problems such as multi-unit auctions and variants of combinatorial auctions, and (2) Showing how a black-box reduction can transforms any FPTAS for a social-welfare maximization problem into a truthful FPTAS , and (3) Arguing that, in the future, there is hope for more powerful black box reductions that would yield sweeping positive results for welfare-maximization problems in general.
Biography: Shaddin Dughmi is a PhD student in the computer science theory group at Stanford University, advised by Professor Tim Roughgarden. His interests include algorithms, game theory, and combinatorial optimization. Recently, Shaddin has focused on the following meta-question in algorithmic mechanism
design: When and how can we efficiently compute a desirable solution to a resource allocation problem despite the presence of selfish behavior? Shaddin graduated from Cornell University in 2004 with a B.S. in computer science and a minor in applied mathematics. From 2004 to 2006, he was an Information Security Engineer at the MITRE Corporation, where he worked on cryptographic protocol analysis. He enrolled in the Stanford computer science PhD program in the Fall of 2006, with an expected graduation date of June 2011.
Host: Dr. David Kempe
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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Munushian Visiting Seminar Series 2010 - 2011 - Keynote Lecture
Wed, Nov 10, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. John L Hall, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology
Talk Title: The Optical Frequency Comb - a new tool with remarkable applications in Science, Metrology, and Medical Diagnostics
Abstract: We easily accept the remarkable capabilities available in the Radio Frequency domain: cellphones, HiDef TV, wireless computer connections, bluetooth earphones, etc. Optical frequency waves represent the same physics as their RF siblings, but oscillate at some million-fold faster rates. So there is correspondingly more bandwidth for signals and interesting new processing ideas but, until recently, there were no optical tools with precision capabilities that even remotely approached a similar level. The avalanche of progress began in 1999 when a group at Lucent Labs demonstrated that a special type of optical fiber could give a highly nonlinear response, converting input laser wavelengths into rainbow light across the visible spectrum, and in a coherent manner. Within a few months two separate laboratories had seen the connections of three independent streams of research, and merged these âobviously unrelatedâ fields to create a new tool, the Optical Frequency Comb, a new kind of laser light with remarkable properties. Only six years later the Nobel Prize was awarded for these advances. One dramatic application is the precision testing of some fundamental & basic assumptions about physical reality: spatial symmetry and uniformity, constancy of the speed of light, and stability of the physical "constants" in our equations. Second is an exciting Medical Diagnostic application which analyzes exhaled human breath for marker molecules associated with diseases such as diabetes, asthma, cancer, and renal failure. It is important that the sensitivity is so great that sub-clinical molecular concentrations can be measured in apparently healthy subjects. For example, Carbon Monoxide was measurable only in the breath of one student -- a former smoker who had quit almost one year previously!
Biography: Hallâs credits include a number of major innovations and developments in laser frequency stabilization, high resolution and ultrasensitive laser spectroscopy, laser length and frequency standards, laser/atom cooling, quantum optics and high-precision laser-based measurements. Author of more than 230 articles in refereed journals, he also holds 11 U. S. patents, the most recent on âAirport Sniffing.â He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and of the French Légion dâhonneur, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Prof. Hänsch of Munich and Prof. Glauber of Harvard.
Host: Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
More Info: : http://geromedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=88bce44e9f604630b940c6d58066267eLocation: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 124
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: : http://geromedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=88bce44e9f604630b940c6d58066267e
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AME Department Seminar
Wed, Nov 10, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Marty Bradley, Technical Fellow, The Boeing Company
Talk Title: A Taste of SUGAR (Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research) Results of the Boeing Study for NASA for Future Commercial Aircraft Concepts & Technologies
Abstract: This seminar summarizes the work accomplished by the Boeing Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) team in a NASA study looking at future concepts and technologies for commercial aircraft in the 2030-2035 timeframe.
The team developed a comprehensive future scenario for world-wide commercial aviation, selected baseline and advanced configurations for detailed study, generated technology suites for each configuration, conducted detailed performance analysis, calculated noise and emissions, assessed technology risks and payoffs, and developed technology roadmaps for key technologies.
Advanced aircraft configurations evaluated in the study included high span strut-braced wings and blended wing bodies (BWB's). A wide portfolio of technologies was identified and evaluated to address the NASA goals. High payoff technologies included hybrid-electric gas turbine battery propulsion, low-NOx combustors, biofuels, advanced air traffic management, noise treatments, laminar flow, and materials.
Compared to today's aircraft, fuel burn reductions of up to 55% were achieved. The additional of hybrid electric propulsion may allow reductions of up to 90%. Significant reductions in emissions, noise, and runway length were also achieved and will be discussed.
Host: Dr. R. Blackwelder
More Info: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcomingLocation: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcoming
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Lyman Handy Colloquium
Thu, Nov 11, 2010 @ 12:45 PM - 01:50 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor David Kisailus, University of California - Riverside
Talk Title: Structure and Composition Analysis of an Ultra-hard Magnetic Biomineral in Chiton Radular Teeth
Abstract: Through the course of evolution, nature has evolved efficient strategies to synthesize inorganic materials that demonstrate desirable mechanical properties. These biological systems demonstrate the ability to control nano- and microstructural features that significantly improve mechanical properties of otherwise brittle materials. The fully-mineralized radular teeth of chitons is one of such example of a superior biomineral consisting of a brittle, magnetic iron oxide crystal. Chitons are a group of herbivorous marine mollusks that have evolved ultra-hard and damage-tolerant teeth to graze upon algae growing on and within rocky substrates. Our results from nano-indentation analyses of the teeth of chiton (Cryptochiton stelleri), indicated that it retained largest hardness and stiffness properties of any biomineral. In order to understand the relationship between composition, structure and mechanical properties of the fully mineralized radular teeth, we further conducted detailed structural and compositional analyses of this magnetic biomineral using various microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses revealed the rod-like orientation of the magnetite crystallites in the teeth. Furthermore, chitin, a polysaccharide found in the exocuticles of many insects, was detected from the teeth by infrared and raman spectroscopic analyses. We believe that the combination of this organic matrix and hard mineral, constructed in a unique microstructure, yields a damage-tolerant, ultra-hard, magnetic biomineral.
Host: Professor Nutt
More Info: http://chems.usc.edu/academics/colloquia.htmLocation: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce
Event Link: http://chems.usc.edu/academics/colloquia.htm
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Ming Hsieh Dept of Electrical Engineering-Systems Distinguished Lecturer Series
Thu, Nov 11, 2010 @ 04:00 PM - 05:15 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, Presidential Chair Professor- USC, President- Viterbi Group LLC, Professor Emeritus- UCSD
Abstract: A.A. Markov proposed and developed a statistical concept which suggests that future action should depend only on the current state of the system or process. Exploitation of the statistical properties of Markov processes has produced important results in optimum linear (Wiener) filtering, with principal applications to navigation, tracking, orbit determination and even economics; and in finite-state sequence determination, with applications to information (Shannon) theory, digital communication, voice and optical character recognition, data recording, search engines, and DNA sequence analysis. Both areas will be discussed and compared, as well as the merits of any societal implications of the Markov concept.
Biography: Andrew J. Viterbi received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from USC, and is co-founder, retired vice chairman and chief technical officer of Qualcomm Incorporated. He also co-founded Linkabit Corporation, and served as professor in the Schools of Engineering at UCLA and UCSD. He is currently president of the Viterbi Group, a technical advisory and investment company, and is also Presidential Chair Professor at USC. He and his wife Erna are the naming donors of the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.
His principal research contribution, the Viterbi Algorithm, is used in most digital cellular phones and digital satellite receivers, and in diverse fields such as magnetic recording, voice recognition and DNA sequence analysis. More recently, he has concentrated on establishing code-division-multiple-access (CDMA) as the multiple access technology of choice for cellular telephony and wireless data communications.
Viterbi has received numerous honors, including honorary doctorates from the Technion and Universities of Waterloo, Rome, and Notre Dame, as well as memberships in the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008 he received the National Medal of Science, and was a Millennium Technology Laureate. He has also received the Marconi International Fellowship Award, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell and Claude Shannon Awards, the NEC C&C Award, the Eduard Rhein Foundation Award and the Christopher Columbus Medal. He recently received the 2010 Medal of Honor from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the highest award of that professional society.
Host: Dr. Alexander A. Sawchuk
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Signal and Image Processing seminar
Fri, Nov 12, 2010 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Maurizio Omologo, Fondazione Bruno Kessler-irst, Trento, Italy
Talk Title: A Prototype of a Distant-talking Interface for Control of Interactive TV
Abstract: This talk aims to describe the goals, challenges, and main achievements of the DICIT EC project, which was coordinated by FBK-irst during the last four years.
The project addressed the development of a multi-modal user-friendly interface for control of SetTopBox, TV, and related services. The interface includes a microphone array to support distant-talking voice input with multiple active speakers. The front-end processing component feeds a chain including speech recognition, natural language understanding, and spoken dialogue management components. The resulting prototype was replicated at several sites and evaluated by 170 users. The results of this campaign showed the effectiveness of the adopted solution as well as potential for future development of real smart-space applications.
During the talk, a brief overview will also be given on the other research activities being conducted under the SHINE group of FBK-irst.
Biography: Maurizio Omologo is the head of the SHINE (Speech-acoustic scene analysis and interpretation) research unit of Fondazione Bruno Kessler-irst, Trento, Italy. He has also been teaching "Audio Signal Processing" at the University of Trento since 2001. His current research interests include Audio and Speech Processing, Acoustic Scene Analysis, and Automatic Speech Recognition, in particular for distant-talking scenarios. Between 2006 and 2009, he acted as Project Manager of the DICIT (Distant-talking Interfaces for Control of Interactive TV) European Project.
Host: Professor Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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Quantifying and Achieving the Capacity of Wireless 1-Hop Network Coding — A Code-Alignment-Based Approach
Fri, Nov 12, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chih-Chun Wang, Purdue University
Talk Title: Quantifying and Achieving the Capacity of Wireless 1-Hop Network Coding â A Code-Alignment-Based Approach
Abstract: One-hop wireless network coding mixes packets of multiple unicast sessions, which has drawn significant attentions in the system-level wireless networking community due to its inherent low complexity of operating within a local neighborhood. One such representative scheme is the ``XOR in the airâ scheme for the wireless cross topologies.
In this talk, we show that despite of the notorious difficulty of characterizing the capacity region of intersession network coding for general wireline networks, the problem becomes more tractable in a 1-hop wireless environment. In particular, we quantify the Shannon capacities of the ``XOR in the airâ scheme by deriving new outer and inner bounds that meet in almost all practical scenarios. The new capacity-achieving schemes are based on the concept of ``code alignment,â a new interference alignment technique in the finite field. The capacity results enable direct and comprehensive comparison of the throughput benefits of network coding and those of other competing techniques, such as cross-layer optimization and opportunistic routing. The capacity results can also be used as a benchmark for evaluating the efficiency of practical protocols.
This is a joint work with Wei-Cheng Kuo, Abdallah Khreishah (Temple University), and Ness Shroff (The OSU).
Biography: Chih-Chun Wang is currently an Assistant Professor of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Purdue University. He received the B.E. degree in E.E. from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan in 1999, the M.S. degree in E.E., the Ph.D. degree in E.E. from Princeton University in 2002 and 2005, respectively. He worked in Comtrend Corporation, Taipei, Taiwan, as a design engineer in 2000 and spent the summer of 2004 with Flarion Technologies, New Jersey. In 2005, he held a post-doctoral researcher position in the Electrical Engineering Department of Princeton University. He joined Purdue University as an Assistant Professor in 2006. His current research interests are in the graph-theoretic and algorithmic analysis of iterative decoding and of network coding. Other research interests of his fall in the general areas of networking, optimal control, information theory, detection theory, and coding theory.
Dr. Wang received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2009.
Host: Alex Dimakis, dimakis [at] usc
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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W.V.T. Rusch Undergraduate Engineering Honors Program Colloquium
Fri, Nov 12, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, Professor, Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Talk Title: Rapid Automated Fabrication of Mega-Scale Structures
Host: W.V.T Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Nov 12, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Azita Emami, CALTECH
Talk Title: Low Power Data Communication Circuits for Advanced Integrated Systems
Host: Prof. Hashemi
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hossein Hashemi
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Towards High Performance III-V Semiconductor Nanowire and Tube Based Devices
Fri, Nov 12, 2010 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Xiuling Li, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: Towards High Performance III-V Semiconductor Nanowire and Tube Based Devices
Abstract: This talk focuses on two types of III-V compound semiconductor nanotechnology building blocks and their applications in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics: nanowires and self-rolled-up tubes.
Interest in semiconductor nanowires have increased exponentially over the past decade because of their unique optical and electrical properties. Integration of semiconductor nanowire based devices has been challenging for vertical nanowire devices since ex-situ assembly techniques are required to align planar nanowire devices. I will present our discovery of a type of nanowires that is planar, self-aligned, twin-defect free, high carrier mobility, and transfer-printable. The planar nanowire growth and doping mechanism by MOCVD, as well as the device characteristics of a long channel MESFET and HEMT using such GaAs nanowire as the channel material will be analyzed.
Self-rolled-up tubes on the other hand is a relatively new platform that possesses the potential to provide a wide range of functionalities. It is formed by a combination of top-down and bottom-up approach through the self-rolling of strained thin films. This allows feasible large area assembly and integration with existing semiconductor technology, while maintaining the control of the tube size and heterojunction formation in the tube wall. I will discuss the formation process, large area assembly, and optical characterization of InxGa1-xAs/GaAs micro and nanotubes with active light emitting media incorporated in the tube wall. Device prospects of SNTs for nanophotonics will be explored.
Biography: Xiuling Li received her Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. She joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in 2007, after working at a startup company for six years. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her current research interests are in the area of nanostructured semiconductor materials and devices. She has won the NSF CAREER award (2008) and DARPA Young Faculty Award (2009). Her groupâs work on the planar nanowires has won one of the best student paper awards at the 2008 IEEE LEOS annual meeting. The micro and nanotube work has been identified as an outstanding symposium paper presented at the 2008 MRS meeting.
Host: P. Daniel Dapkus
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Eliza Aceves
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period and in 10 weeks online.Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office® to the seminar.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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BME 533 - Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hossein Jadvar, Department of Radiology, USC Keck School of Medicine,
Talk Title: Promise of Molecular Imaging
Host: Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: BME graduate students, Faculty, contact department if interested (213-740-7237)
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Math Finance Colloquium
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 @ 02:15 PM - 03:15 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Olaf Menkens , University of Dublin, Ireland
Talk Title: "Optimising Proportional Reinsurance Using a Worst Case Scenario Approach"
Abstract: This presentation considers the problem of an insurance company to optimize its reserve process by proportional reinsurance. Usually, the reinsurance level will be determined by a ruin probability constraint or by minimizing the ruin probability (see e.g. Hipp and Vogt (2003), Schmidli (2001, 2002, and 2004), or Eisenberg and Schmidli (2008)). Instead of conditioning on the ruin probability, this presentation will maximize the controlled reserve process by a worst--case scenario approach.
The worst--case scenario approach has been introduced in the context of portfolio optimization by Korn and Wilmott (2002). This approach has been extended so far in various ways (e.g. considering different utility function (Korn and Menkens (2005)), optimizing investment portfolio of an insurance company (Korn (2005)), in a stochastic differential game context (Korn and Steffensen (2007)).
We start by making the so--called small claims assumption, that is the claims will be modeled as a Brownian motion with drift. Second, the claims will be modeled as the sum of a Brownian motion with drift and a Poisson process and third, claims will be modeled as a Poisson process. Results will be computed, analyzed, and compared with the results of minimizing the ruin probability.
This is work in progress and joint research with Ralf Korn (TU Kaiserslautern) and Mogens Steffensen (U of Copenhagen).
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - Room 414
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Katerina Argyraki, EPFL
Talk Title: Verifiable Network-Performance Measurements
Abstract: In the current Internet, there is no clean way to troubleshoot poor forwarding performance: when an Internet service provider (ISP) does not forward traffic as agreed/expected, its customers and peers resort to ad-hoc probing to localize and assess the problem. Research proposals advocate end-to-end measurements from different vantage points (e.g., PlanetLab nodes) as a way to forcefully extract information on an ISP's performance without any involvement from the ISP itself. I will argue that it is time to consider a different approach, where ISPs willingly contribute information on their performance, albeit in a way that forces them to tell the truth.
I will present Network Confessional, a system and protocol that enables ISPs to disclose accurate information on their forwarding performance. This information is verifiable -- ISPs cannot manipulate it to significantly exaggerate their performance -- and independently tunable -- each ISP is free to choose its own trade-off between the accuracy of its performance estimates and the resources it devotes to this purpose.
Network Confessional requires deploying modest functionality at participating domains' border routers; I will show that required resources are well within the capabilities of modern networks and can be implemented using today's hardware.
Biography: Katerina Argyraki is a network researcher at EPFL, Switzerland, where she works on programmable networks and techniques for network troubleshooting. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2007. Her graduate-student years were divided between Stanford's Distributed Systems Group, where she worked on defenses against denial-of-service attacks, and various startups -- Kealia (now part of Sun), BlueArc, and Arista Networks.
Host: Profs. Konstantinos Psounis and Ramesh Govindan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period and in 10 weeks online.Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office® to the seminar.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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GTHB Seminar
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tim Roughgarden, Stanford University
Talk Title: Intrinsic Robustness of the Price of Anarchy
Abstract: The price of anarchy is a measure of the inefficiency of selfish behavior that has been successfully analyzed in many applications, including network routing, resource allocation, network formation, and even models of basketball. It is defined as the worst-case ratio between the welfare of a Nash equilibrium and that of an optimal (first-best) solution. Seemingly, a bound on the price of anarchy is meaningful only if players successfully reach some Nash equilibrium. Our main result is that for many of the classes of games in which the price of anarchy has been studied, results are "intrinsically robust" in the following sense: a bound on the worst-case price of anarchy for pure Nash equilibria *necessarily* implies the exact same worst-case bound for a much larger sets of outcomes, including mixed Nash equilibria, correlated equilibria, and sequences of outcomes generated by natural experimentation strategies (such as successive best responses or simultaneous regret-minimization).
Biography: Tim Roughgarden received his PhD from Cornell University in 2002 and joined the Stanford CS faculty in 2004. His research interests lie in theoretical computer science, especially its interfaces with game theory and networks. He wrote the book "Selfish Routing and the Price of Anarchy" (MIT Press, 2005) and co-edited the book "Algorithmic Game Theory", with Nisan, Tardos, and Vazirani (Cambridge, 2007). His significant awards include the 2002 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (Honorable Mention), the 2003 Tucker Prize, the 2003 INFORMS Optimization Prize for Young Researchers, speaking at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians, a 2007 PECASE Award, the 2008 Shapley Lectureship of the Game Theory Society, and the 2009 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award.
Host: GTHB
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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College Commons Panel Discussion
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sharon Swartz (Evolutionary Biology, Brown University), Akira Lippit (Cinema USC), and Michael Arbib (Computer Science and Neuroscience, USC) , Brown University & USC
Talk Title: Thinking With/As Animals
Abstract: When bees dance, when birds and whales sing and when bats echolocate, how close do these communicative methods come to what we call âlanguageâ? Furthermore, within evolutionary processes, how do manual gestures among humans become speech and how does a leg, in the case of the bat, become a wing? What essential changes to the nature of the human or the animal are signified by speech and flight? And how do we represent the relations between humans and animals in terms of choreographies of the gaze? Why and when do animals look at humans? What do they see when they do look? And how are human and animal gazes the same or different?
In a wide-ranging and dynamic panel discussion between Sharon Swartz (Evolutionary Biology, Brown University), Akira Lippit (Cinema USC), and Michael Arbib (Computer Science and Neuroscience, USC) we will engage these questions and more about the differences and similarities between animals and humans.
To secure your spot please RSVP to: tcc@college.usc.edu
Part IV of a Series of V: THE HUMAN-ANIMAL DIVIDE
Host: College Commons
Location: Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library (DML) - 240
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period and in 10 weeks online.Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office® to the seminar.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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Air Quality: What can be done with all that Ambient Data?
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Air Quality: What can be done witth all that Ambient Data?
Abstract: A fundamental element of air quality management is the ambient measurement of air quality. With the advent of contemporary instrumentation and the capability for fast electronic recording and archiving, a very large, long term data base now exists for much of the United States. These data can be used for a variety of purposes to inform decision makers. Perhaps the simplest application is the documentation of air quality trends. Much more insightful is the use of the data to extend knowledge about source-receptor relationships, and for using observationally-based models to interpret physical and chemical processes that can advance management practices. Some examples of âinnovativeâ analyses using ambient data show the potential for new information about air pollution and its usefulness in creating pollution reduction schemes.
Host: Dr. Ronald Henry
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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AME Department Seminar
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jean-Marc Chomaz, Laboratoire d'Hydrodynamique (LadHyX), CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique
Talk Title: The Convective Modoki: The Linear and Nonlinear Dynamics of Real Flows
Abstract: Novel and versatile numerical tolls are used to compute the stability of complex real flows as recirculation bubble, impinging jets, 2D or 3D wakes. Receptivity to perturbation, to blowing and suction, to base flow modification and nonlinear coupling between modes may be accessed by formulating the adjoint problem. Computation of the adjoint global mode show that both the lift-up mechanism associated to the transport of the base flow by the perturbation and the convective nonnormality associated to the transport of the perturbation by the base flow explain the properties of the flow. In particular, a compact wave maker region may be rigorously defined where control will be efficient and nonlinear interaction take place. Application to the nonlinear dynamics of the wake of a disk and of vortex induced vibration will be discussed.
More Info: Dr. G. SpeddingLocation: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: Dr. G. Spedding
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period and in 10 weeks online.Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office® to the seminar.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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CRA-W/CDC Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mondira (Mandy) Pant, Intel
Talk Title: Microprocessor Power Challenges
Abstract: The relentless pursuit of microprocessor performance over the last decade has been challenged by power consumption. The talk will provide an overview of the microprocessor power trends, reviewing historical efforts to control power such as thermal throttling. Also covered will be a review of power states and how they are used to reduce power in processors. Specific techniques used in today's generation of processors to reduce power like power gating; independent voltage and frequency domains; dynamic power and frequency scaling in response to processor loading and operating system state requests; making use of wide dynamic range, will be mentioned. Further the talk will include some discussions on power delivery challenges associated with these power reduction efforts.
Biography: Dr. Mondira (Mandy) Deb Pant received her B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from I.I.T Kharagpur, India in 1995. She picked up a MS in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA in 1997 and 2000 respectively. She joined Intel in Aug 2001 as part of the Alpha team acquisition from Compaq Computer Corporation where she worked since graduating in Aug 2000. The first couple of years she worked as the Sequential design lead on a next generation ItaniumTM microprocessor. Over the past couple of years, as a lead technologist in the area of power delivery and power management, she has been investigating and driving several issues in the power space, particularly on-chip power delivery issues, power management and power reduction on the next generation XeonTM server and ItaniumTM microprocessors at Intel. She has given several invited talks at various conferences and universities, most recently as a Keynote speaker at the GLVSI conference and is regarded as an expert in her field. In 2009, Mandy was been recognized by Mass High Tech as one of the top ten upcoming Women to Watch. To know more about her you can visit her website: www.mondirapant.com
Host: Prof. Timothy Pinkston
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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CENG, CS & CED/WIE Panel Discussion
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mondira (Mandy) Pant, Intel, and Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Why Pursue Graduate School?
Abstract: This panel encourages students to pursue graduate degree(s) in computing and engineering fields at Masterâs and Ph.D. levels. It aims to inspire and prepare students to be successful in graduate school pursuits. Questions addressed by the panel include the following: Why attend grad school, and why in a computing/engineering field as opposed to some other professional field? How does a graduate degree in a computing/engineering field impact oneâs career opportunities and earning potential? 3) What is the difference between a Masters and PhD, how long do each take, and how do the possible career paths differ between the two degrees? What is exciting about doing research, and how can one find out if research is interesting to him/her? How does one get accepted into graduate school, which schools, and how to pay for it? How can one best prepare him/herself to succeed in grad school? What are the biggest challenges?
Host: Prof. Timothy Pinkston, Senior Associate Dean of Engineering
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Photonics Seminar Series
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 12:45 PM - 01:45 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Peter B. Catrysse, Stanford University
Talk Title: Metal optics at the nano-scale: from basic physics to integrated optoelectronic applications
Abstract: The manipulation of light is essential in many optoelectronic applications as well as in fundamental research. One of the emerging opportunities in light manipulation is the use of nanostructures. In information technology, for example, it can lead to smaller, faster information processing systems via monolithic integration of optics and electronics. In physics research, it can open up new regimes of light-matter interaction by greatly enhancing weak optical processes through highly-confined optical fields. In this talk, I present my work on the use of metallic nanostructures to control of light at deep-subwavelength scales. First, I describe my theoretical contributions to the basic physics of metal optics at the nano-scale. I demonstrate a conceptual approach for designing novel materials based on the existence of deep-subwavelength modes in metallic systems. Next, I describe my experimental contributions to the creation of ultra-compact photonic devices in optoelectronic systems. With the examples presented in this talk, I illustrate the rich set of opportunities for nano-scale metal optics research at the interface between fundamental physics and large-scale optoelectronic systems.
Biography: Dr. Peter B. Catrysse is an Engineering Research Associate in the E. L. Ginzton Laboratory at Stanford University. He holds Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He pioneered the integration of subwavelength metal optics in standard deep-submicron CMOS technology. His current work focuses on nanophotonics at the interface between basic physics and optoelectronic systems. He has authored more than 75 refereed publications and holds several US patents. Dr. Catrysse is a Brussels Hoover Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation, a Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and the recipient of a 2008 Hewlett-Packard Labs Innovation Research Award.
Host: Michelle Povinelli
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jing Ma
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/
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CS Colloquium: CRA-W/CDC Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Adaptive Drama Management: Bringing Machine Learning to Interactive Entertainment
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in constructing rich interactive entertainment and training experiences. As these experiences have grown in complexity, there has been a corresponding growing need for the development of robust technologies to shape and modify those experiences in reaction to the actions of human participants.
When thinking about how machine learning and artificial intelligence could help, one notes that the traditional goal of AI games---to win the game---is not particularly useful; rather, the goal is to make the human player's play experience better while being consistent with the goals of the author.
In this talk, I will present our technical efforts to achieve this goal by using machine learning as a way to allow designers to specify problems in broad strokes while allowing a machine do further fine-tuning. In particular, I discuss (1) Targeted Trajectory Distribution Markov Decision Processes (TTD-MDPs), an extension of MDPs that provide variety of experience during repeated execution and (2) computational influence, an automated way of operationalizing theories of influence and persuasion from social psychology to help guide players without decreasing their feelings of autonomy. I also describe our evaluation of these techniques with both simulations and an interactive storytelling system with human subjects.
Biography: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., received his BS in computer science in 1990 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his PhD in 1998 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After four years at AT&T Labs, he returned to Georgia Tech as faculty at the College of Computing. Charles' research interests are varied, but recently he has been building autonomous agents that engage in life-long learning in the presence of thousands of other intelligent agents, including humans. His work has been featured in the popular media, including The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as in technical collections, where he has won two best paper awards in this area. Charles also pursues reform in CS education. He was a developer of Threads, Georgia Tech's new structuring principle for computing curricula. Recently, he has become the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for the College of Computing.
Host: Dr. Timothy Pinkston, Senior Associate Dean of Engineering
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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CENG Seminar: CRA-W/CDC Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Adaptive Drama Management: Bringing Machine Learning to Interactive Entertainment
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in constructing rich interactive entertainment and training experiences. As these experiences have grown in complexity, there has been a corresponding growing need for the development of robust technologies to shape and modify those experiences in reaction to the actions of human participants.
When thinking about how machine learning and artificial intelligence could help, one notes that the traditional goal of AI games---to win the game---is not particularly useful; rather, the goal is to make the human player's play experience better while being consistent with the goals of the author.
In this talk, I will present our technical efforts to achieve this goal by using machine learning as a way to allow designers to specify problems in broad strokes while allowing a machine do further fine-tuning. In particular, I discuss (1) Targeted Trajectory Distribution Markov Decision Processes (TTD-MDPs), an extension of MDPs that provide variety of experience during repeated execution and (2) computational influence, an automated way of operationalizing theories of influence and persuasion from social psychology to help guide players without decreasing their feelings of autonomy. I also describe our evaluation of these techniques with both simulations and an interactive storytelling system with human subjects.
Biography: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., received his BS in computer science in 1990 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his PhD in 1998 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After four years at AT&T Labs, he returned to Georgia Tech as faculty at the College of Computing. Charles' research interests are varied, but recently he has been building autonomous agents that engage in life-long learning in the presence of thousands of other intelligent agents, including humans. His work has been featured in the popular media, including The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as in technical collections, where he has won two best paper awards in this area. Charles also pursues reform in CS education. He was a developer of Threads, Georgia Tech's new structuring principle for computing curricula. Recently, he has become the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for the College of Computing.
Host: Prof. Timothy Pinkston
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Six Sigma Black Belt
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period and in 10 weeks online.Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office® to the seminar.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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AME Department Seminar
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ãlisabeth Guazzelli , Associate Professor, IUSTI - CNRS, Polytech'Marseille
Talk Title: Falling Clouds of Particles
Abstract: The time evolution of clouds of particles settling under the action of gravity in an otherwise pure liquid is investigated both experimentally and numerically. It is found that an initially spherical cloud containing enough particles is unstable even in the complete absence of inertia. The cloud slowly evolves into a torus which breaks up into secondary droplets which deform into tori themselves in a repeating cascade. The discrete nature of the particles is fundamental in the understanding of these instabilities. Faster breakup is observed for clouds of anisotropic particles such as fibers due to the self motion of the anisotropic particles. When inertia is finite, the cloud also deforms into a flat torus that eventually destabilizes and breaks up into a number of secondary droplets. While this behavior bears some similarity with that observed at zero-inertia, the underlying physical mechanisms differ. Moreover, the evolution of the cloud deformation is accelerated as inertia is increased. Two inertial regimes where macro-scale inertia and micro-scale inertia become successively dominant are clearly identified.
Host: Dr. E. Kanso
More Info: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcomingLocation: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: http://ame-www.usc.edu/seminars/index.shtml#upcoming
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Computing with Stochastic Processors: Embracing Errors in Architecture and Design of Processors and Applications
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rakesh Kumar, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Talk Title: Computing with Stochastic Processors: Embracing Errors in Architecture and Design of Processors and Applications
Abstract: All of computing today relies on an abstraction where software expects the hardware to behave flawlessly for all inputs under all conditions. While the abstraction worked historically due to the relatively small magnitude of variations in hardware and environment, computing will increasingly be done with devices and circuits which are inherently stochastic or whose behavior is stochastic due to manufacturing and environmental uncertainties. For such emerging circuits/devices, the cost of maintaining the abstraction of flawless hardware will be prohibitive and we will need to fundamentally rethink the correctness contract between hardware and software. In our group, we are exploring a vision of computing systems where a) hardware and environmental variations are fully exposed to the highest layers of software in form errors, and b) hardware and software is optimized to maximize power savings afforded by relaxed correctness. We call the under-designed processors that produce stochastically correct results even under nominal conditions, stochastic processors. We call the applications that have been implemented to be adaptively error-tolerant, stochastic applications. In this talk, I will describe our recent approaches to architect and design stochastic processors and stochastic applications.
Biography: Rakesh Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He received a B.Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur in 2001 and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California, San Diego in September 2006. Prior to moving to Champaign in 2007, he was a visiting researcher with Microsoft Research at Redmond. His research interests are in computer architectures and programming models for emerging workloads, and computing in face of large scale errors. His research has been recognized by an Arnold O Beckman Research Award - 2009, FAA Creative Research Award - 2008, Intel Research Council Award - 2007-2009, UCSD CSE Best Dissertation Award - 2007, and an IBM PhD Fellowship 2005.
Host: Melvin A. Breuer
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 222
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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USC PSOC Monthly Seminar Series - Dr. Timothy Newman
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 11:45 AM - 01:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Timothy Newman, Professor of Physics, Physical Sciences, Director of Center for Biological Physics, Arizona State University
Talk Title: Modeling Active Processes in Cancer Progression and Embryogenesis
Abstract: Our group focuses on the study of multicellular dynamics, mainly through the use of large-scale computation. Our work is split evenly between two profoundly challenging yet distinct problems: embryo development and cancer. The Subcellular Element Model (ScEM ) we have developed allows for the simulations of large numbers of deformable three-dimensional cells in a grid-free setting. Briefly, each cell is described by a few hundred "subcellular elements" which represent the nodes of a coarse-grained cytoskeleton. Elements are visco-elastically coupled with short-range interactions. Neighboring cells interact through short-ranged interactions between peripheral elements on each cell. This algorithm allows a computationally efficient means to simulate three-dimensional cell shape and deformations. Despite the simplicity of its underlying framework, the ScEM has been shown to reproduce the basic rheological properties of cells on times scales greater than ~ 0.1s (Sandersius and Newman 2008). We are developing new modules for ScEM, building on the basic biomechanical foundation of the model. In particular, we are modeling active cell dynamics (e.g. polarization, cytoskeletal rearrangement) in order to capture important features of cell movement within tissue. I will discuss our recent work on adding layers of active cell behavior to the underlying model of cell mechanics, and how this has enabled us to describe gross cell deformations under applied stress, as well as fluid-like motions which are commonly seen in embryonic epithelia. I will also address the challenges in applying this methodology to modeling multicellular systems relevant to cancer progression.
Hosted by Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. For additional information, contact: glenda.redfield@med.usc.edu or 323-442-3849. Pizza and beverages will be provided at 11:45 a.m.
Host: Center for Applied Molecular Medicine
Location: May Ormerod Harris Hall, Quinn Wing & Fisher Gallery (HAR) - -kness Auditorium IGM
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Glenda Redfield
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W.V.T. Rusch Undergraduate Engineering Honors Program Colloquium
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sean Carroll, Senior Research Associate in Physics, Caltech
Talk Title: The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time
Host: W.V.T Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof Elad Alon, Berkeley
Talk Title: Energy-Efficient Design: From Multi-Gb/s Wireless Communications to Nano-Electro-Mechanical Relays
Host: Prof. Hashemi
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hossein Hashemi
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CS Colloquium
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Victor Lesser, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Talk Title: Reflections on being an AI System Architect
Abstract: I will share with you the intellectual intuitions and serendipities that have shaped my research career. I first discuss my early research that includes my PhD thesis work at Stanford on a reconfigurable multiprocessor and my post-doc work as the system architect for the Hearsay-II system at CMU (the first fully instantiated blackboard system) that have strongly influenced my later research. These ideas will include distribution of control, meta-level and self-aware control, managing inconsistency rather than eliminating it, the importance of learning as an integral part of a system's architecture, and recognizing that experimentation is more than gathering statistics. In discussing these ideas, I will present a number of systems that I have developed with my students that embody these ideas. I will conclude the lecture by discussing some of my recent work on organizational control that brings many of these ideas together. The basis of this lecture comes out of two papers on my web site: ftp://mas.cs.umass.edu/pub/lesser/system_architect_webdoc.pdf and ftp://mas.cs.umass.edu/pub/LabHistory_Web-Article.pdf
Biography: Victor R. Lesser received his B.A. in Mathematics from Cornell University in 1966, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1973. He then was a post-doc/research scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University, working on the Hearsay-II speech understanding system. He has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 1977, and was named Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in 2009. His major research focus is on the control and organization of complex AI systems. He is considered a leading researcher in the areas of blackboard systems, multi-agent/ distributed AI, and real-time AI. He has also made contributions in the areas of computer architecture, signal understanding, diagnostics, plan recognition, and computer-supported cooperative work. He has worked in application areas such as sensor networks for vehicle tracking and weather monitoring, speech and sound understanding, information gathering on the internet, peer-to-peer information retrieval, intelligent user interfaces, distributed task allocation and scheduling, and virtual agent enterprises.
Professor Lesser is a Founding Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and an IEEE Fellow. He was General Chair of the first international conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS) in 1995, and Founding President of the International Foundation of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (IFAAMAS) in 1998. To honor his contributions to the field of multi-agent systems, IFAAMAS established the "Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award." He received the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) Outstanding Teaching Award (2004) and Outstanding Research Award (2008), and the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity (2008). Professor Lesser was also the recipient of the IJCAI-09 Award for Research Excellence.
Host: Prof. Milind Tambe
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 124
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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BME 533 - Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 22, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Harvey Borovetz, Department of Bioengineering, U. Pittsburgh
Talk Title: Current & Future Perspectives in Cardiac Assist Devices for Adult and Pediatric Patients
Biography: http://www.engr.pitt.edu/bioengineering/main/people/faculty/borovetz_harvey.html
Host: Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106
Audiences: BME graduate students, Faculty, contact department if interested (213-740-7237)
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Seminar by Jongseung Yoon
Tue, Nov 23, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jongseung Yoon, USC, Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Talk Title: Inorganic Semiconductor Micro/Nanomaterials and Deterministic Assembly by Transfer Printing for Unusual Format Photovoltaics
Abstract: Solar modules that involve large collections of small, ultrathin photovoltaic cells integrated on a thin sheet of plastic offer attractive features that can not be achieved with conventional approaches. In the first part of my talk, I will describe the use of ultrathin, monocrystalline silicon solar microcells generated from the bulk wafer through wet chemical etching and top-down lithographic processes as building blocks for creating unconventional photovoltaic modules enabled with massively parallel printing techniques. The resulting devices can provide many useful characteristics, including high degrees of mechanical flexibility, user-definable levels of transparency, ultra-thin form factor micro-optic concentrator designs, together with the potential for low cost and high efficiency. In the second part, I will discuss releasable epitaxial multilayer assemblies of gallium arsenide (GaAs) based compound semiconductors for their use in high performance photovoltaics. While compound semiconductors such as GaAs provide unmatched performance in photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices, current methods for growing and fabricating these materials are incompatible with the most important modes of use, particularly in photovoltaics, where large quantities of material must be distributed over large areas on low cost, amorphous foreign substrates. We developed new methods that address many of these challenges, through cost effective production of high quality functional films of GaAs from thick, epitaxial assemblies formed in a single deposition sequence on a growth wafer. Specialized designs enabled separation, release and assembly of individual active layers in these stacks to create devices on various substrates, in quantities and over areas that exceed possibilities with conventional approaches.
Biography: Prof. Yoon received his B.S. degree from Seoul National University in South Korea, and Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. Prof. Yoon has been a Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2007. At UIUC, Prof. Yoon has worked on developing new approaches for high performance, unusual format photovoltaic and optoelectronic systems based on arrays of monocrystalline Si and GaAs and micro-transfer-printing techniques. Prof. Yoonâs research interests at USC lie in exploiting various classes of micro/nanomaterials and heterogeneously integrating them into functional devices in the manner that their electrical, optical, mechanical, and thermal properties are optimally combined together for advanced applications in energy-harvesting, photonics, electronics, as well as sensor technologies.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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CS Colloquium
Tue, Nov 23, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Chun-Nan Hsu, Information Sciences Institute (ISI)
Talk Title: Accelerating Machine Learning by Aggressive Extrapolation
Abstract: This talk presents how to accelerate statistical machine learning algorithms for large scale applications by aggressive extrapolation. Extrapolation methods, such as Aitken's acceleration, have the advantage that they can achieve quadratic convergence with an overhead linear to the dimension of the training data. However, they can be numerically unstable and their convergence is only locally guaranteed. We show that this can be fixed by a double extrapolation method. There are two options for the extrapolation, global or component-wise. Previously, it was not clear which option is more effective. We show a general condition to determine which option will be more effective and show how to apply the condition to the training of Bayesian networks and conditional random fields (CRF). Then we show that extrapolation can accelerate on-line learning with a method called Periodic Step-size Adaptation (PSA). We show that PSA is an approximation of a theoretic "single-pass" on-line learning method, which can converge to an empirical optimum in a single pass through the training examples. With a single-pass on-line learning method, disk I/O can be minimized when a training set is too large to fit in memory. Experimental results for a wide variety of models, including CRF, linear SVM, and convolutional neural networks, show that single-pass performance of PSA is always very close to empirical optimum. Finally, an application to gene mention tagging for biological text mining will be presented, which achieved the top score in BioCreative 2 challenge in 2007 and again in BioCreative 3 challenge in 2010.
Biography: Dr. Chun-Nan Hsu is a computer scientist at Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Prior to joining ISI, he is Research Fellow and Leader of the Adaptive Internet Intelligent Agents (AIIA) Lab at the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests include machine learning, data mining, databases and bioinformatics. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. In 1996, before he passed his doctoral oral exam, he had been offered a position as Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. He taught there for two years before he returned to Taiwan in 1998. Since 2005, he has been the principal investigator of the Advanced Bioinformatics Core, National Research Program in Genomic Medicine, Taiwan, and leading one of the largest research efforts in computerized drug design and discovery in Taiwan. In 2006, the first drug candidate due to the use of the software his team developed was commercialized. In 2007, his teams achieved the best scores in the BioCreative 2 text mining challenge. Dr. Hsu has published about 90 scientific articles since 1993. Currently, Dr. Hsu has been working on applying artificial intelligence to computational biology and bioinformatics.
Host: Dr. Dennis McLeod
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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CS Colloquium
Tue, Nov 23, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Chun-Nan Hsu, ISI, USC, Machine Learning, Information Integration and Bioinformatics
Talk Title: Accelerating Machine Learning by Aggressive Extrapolation
Abstract: This talk presents how to accelerate statistical machine learning algorithms for large scale applications by aggressive extrapolation. Extrapolation methods, such as Aitken's acceleration, have the advantage that they can achieve quadratic convergence with an overhead linear to the dimension of the training data. However, they can be numerically unstable and their convergence is only locally guaranteed. We show that this can be fixed by a double extrapolation method. There are two options for the extrapolation, global or component-wise. Previously, it was not clear which option is more effective. We show a general condition to determine which option will be more effective and show how to apply the condition to the training of Bayesian networks and conditional random fields (CRF). Then we show that extrapolation can accelerate on-line learning with a method called Periodic Step-size Adaptation (PSA). We show that PSA is an approximation of a theoretic "single-pass" on-line learning method, which can converge to an empirical optimum in a single pass through the training examples. With a single-pass on-line learning method, disk I/O can be minimized when a training set is too large to fit in memory. Experimental results for a wide variety of models, including CRF, linear SVM, and convolutional neural networks, show that single-pass performance of PSA is always very close to empirical optimum. Finally, an application to gene mention tagging for biological text mining will be presented, which achieved the top score in BioCreative 2 challenge in 2007 and again in BioCreative 3 challenge in 2010.
Biography: Dr. Chun-Nan Hsu is a computer scientist at Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Prior to joining ISI, he is Research Fellow and Leader of the Adaptive Internet Intelligent Agents (AIIA) Lab at the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests include machine learning, data mining, databases and bioinformatics. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. In 1996, before he passed his doctoral oral exam, he had been offered a position as Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. He taught there for two years before he returned to Taiwan in 1998. Since 2005, he has been the principal investigator of the Advanced Bioinformatics Core, National Research Program in Genomic Medicine, Taiwan, and leading one of the largest research efforts in computerized drug design and discovery in Taiwan. In 2006, the first drug candidate due to the use of the software his team developed was commercialized. In 2007, his teams achieved the best scores in the BioCreative 2 text mining challenge. Dr. Hsu has published about 90 scientific articles since 1993. Currently, Dr. Hsu has been working on applying artificial intelligence to computational biology and bioinformatics.
Host: Prof. Dennis McLeod
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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BME 533 - Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 29, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Paul Yager, Chair of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington
Talk Title: Microfluidics 2.0: 2-Dimensional Paper Networks for POC Diagnostics in the Developed and Developing Worlds
Abstract: Diagnosis of disease in the developing world is, today, not as well supported by technology as it is in the developed world. A team consisting of the University of Washington, Epoch Biosciences, PATH, and Micronics, Inc., has just completed a 5-year project for developing a point-of-care system for diagnosing infectious diseases at the point-of-care in the developing world. The DxBox, as the prototype was called, was based on a permanent battery-powered reader, and polymer-based disposable microfluidic cards that contain all reagents (dry and wet). Commercial versions of this instrument will bring new capabilities for multiplexed analysis by both immunoassays and nucleic acid amplification to locations that could never support such analysis before.
The problem is that to date all flexible microfluidic systems, including the DxBox disposables, have required supporting technology at least to move fluid through the channels, including syringe pumps, or pressure sources and valves, heaters and voltage sources. This equipment has proven to be irreducibly expensive. In contrast, paper-based lateral flow immunoassays (or immunochromatographic test strips) are used in the home in the developed world (e.g., pregnancy test strips) and in the developing world for point of-care detection of infectious disease. These strips can be inexpensive, because they use only capillarity to move fluids; they require no supporting pumps or pressure sources or readers, and they are well suited to storage of reagents in dry form. However, they often measure only one analyte per strip, and are limited to high-concentration analytes because they can only perform a limited sequence of reactions, and usually provide only qualitative results.
Based on immunoassays for the DxBox on nitrocellulose devices and the work of others who have demonstrated some abilities of paper networks, it is now clear that one can combine the sophistication of the microfluidic circuit with the pump-free simplicity of capillary pumping. Under NIH support, we have been focusing on development of sophisticated but disposable 2-dimensional porous (or paper) networks (2DPNs) that allow programmed sequential delivery of an arbitrarily large set of reagents to specific sites on the devices. This offers the promise of the sophistication of microfluidic systems with no supporting instrument at all, except for a cell phone camera. By limiting the devices as much as possible to single layer of porous material (plus an injection-molded housing), cost can be extremely low. As a first challenge, we are targeting a high-value applicationâthe development of multiplexed immunoassays that are made more sensitive than conventional lateral flow devices by performing chemical and biochemical amplification.
The first challenge was to develop design tools for 2DPNs, coupled with methods for monitoring flow in the opaque 2DPN matrix. We have also demonstrated the several conventional microfluidic devices can be implemented in 2DPNs with excellent performance, but at ~104 times less cost. We have shown that 2DPNs allow automated instrument-free sequential delivery of reagents in a format ideally suited to inexpensive disposables, and have extended this to amplification chemistries, achieving much higher sensitivity without the need for a specialized reader.
Host: Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC
More Info: http://faculty.washington.edu/yagerp/Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Auditorium
Audiences: BME graduate students, Faculty, contact department if interested (213-740-7237)
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
Event Link: http://faculty.washington.edu/yagerp/
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Design Principles for Networked Communities
Mon, Nov 29, 2010 @ 01:30 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Mihaela van der Schaar , University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: Design Principles for Networked Communities
Abstract: This research addresses the design of interactions between agents in networked communities. When the communities are composed of compliant machines, network utility maximization (NUM) and other methods can be used to achieve efficient outcomes. When the communities are composed of intelligent and self-interested agents (multimedia peer-to-peer networks, social networks, etc.), such methods are not effective and efficiency is much more difficult to achieve because the interests of the individual agents may be in conflict. This talk describes design principles to achieve efficient outcomes in such networks based on the use of incentives (rewards and punishments). Depending on the characteristics of the network, the community, and the capacity of the designer, the application of these principles may be through any of a number of various mechanisms. This talk discusses mechanisms based on social norms, direct reciprocation, and pricing.
Biography: Mihaela van der Schaar is Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests are in multimedia signal processing, multimedia networking and communication, multimedia systems, multi-user communication networks, online learning, network economics and game theory. She received in 2004 an NSF CAREER Award, in 2005 the Best Paper Award from IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, in 2006 the Okawa Foundation Award, in 2005, 2007 and 2008 the IBM Faculty Award, and in 2006 the Most Cited Paper Award from EURASIP: Image Communications journal. She is an IEEE Fellow. She was an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Signal Processing Letters, Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, Signal Processing Magazine etc. She also holds 33 granted US patents and 3 ISO awards for her contributions to the MPEG video compression and streaming international standardization activities. Starting Jan. 2011, she is the editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. For more information about her research see: http://medianetlab.ee.ucla.edu/
Host: Professor C.-C. Jay Kuo
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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CS Colloquium
Tue, Nov 30, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Morteza Dehghani , ICT, USC
Talk Title: Investigating and Modeling the Role of Cultural Narratives in Moral Decision-Making
Abstract: In dealing with conflict, two broadly different approaches to modeling the values that drive decisions and choice of behavior have emerged: a consequentialist approach based on instrumental or material values, versus a deontological approach based on moral or sacred values. Sacred values are different from secular values in that they are often associated with violations of the cost-benefit logic of rational choice models. Understanding and modeling the impacts of sacred values on decision making is especially important in resolving intergroup conflicts and negotiations. In this talk, I first examine whether the principles of analogical retrieval and mapping govern the processes by which cultural and sacred narratives are applied. To understand and model this process computationally, I have developed MoralDM as a model of recognition-based moral decision-making. This model relies on a combination of first-principles reasoning and analogical reasoning to model the recognition-based mode of decision making. To discuss the broader impact of the role of narratives on decision making, I examine Iran's stance on its national nuclear program, using it as an indicator of how sacred values can emerge from sacred rhetoric. Overall, I argue that understanding sacred values and the processes by which they emerge are vital for understanding and modeling decision-making in cultural contexts.
Biography: Morteza Dehghani is currently a Research Scientist at Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT) at University of Southern California. Before joining ICT, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University and a Young Investigator fellow at ARTIS. His research interests include computational social sciences, cross cultural differences in moral decision making, analogical and case-based reasoning, and cognitive modeling of different aspects of cognition. He is specifically interested in the role of cultural products in decision making and in the emergence of sacred values. His research approach consists of both conducting psychological experiments and computational cognitive modeling. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Computer Science with specialization in Cognitive Science from Northwestern University and MS and BS from University of California at Los Angeles.
Host: Prof. Ewa Deelman
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
