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Events for November 17, 2016
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Modeling Speech Production: From MRI Data to Articulatory Gestures
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Asterios Toutios, Research Associate/USC
Talk Title: Modeling Speech Production: From MRI Data to Articulatory Gestures
Abstract: Novel technologies for imaging the vocal tract, such as real-time MRI, offer extraordinary opportunities for moving speech production research forward. A long-term goal of my research is to develop a modular architecture for synthesizing personalized, highly intelligible and natural-sounding speech, by combining vocal-tract imaging with mathematical modeling and linguistic knowledge. My approach is to model direct observations of the time-varying changes in vocal-tract shaping, in order to derive functional mappings from linguistic structures to synthesized vocal-tract dynamics, which will then drive a realistic simulation of the formation of speech acoustics by the dynamically changing vocal tract. Such an effort may have important technological impact, and validate ample scientific knowledge on the mechanisms of human speech production. In this talk, I will discuss a framework for deriving from real-time MRI data the spatiotemporal deployment of articulatory gestures (which may be viewed as linguistic, cognitive, or motor control targets) in fluent speech and in a speaker-specific manner. The framework includes: automatic segmentation of articulators in real-time MRI videos; the derivation of a guided factor analysis model of the vocal-tract geometry; a locally-linear mapping between deformations of articulators and vocal-tract constrictions; and the application of a novel convolutive non-negative matrix factorization algorithm.
Biography: Asterios Toutios is a research associate with the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL) at USC, where he leads and coordinates the Speech Production and Articulation kNowledge (SPAN) group. His main research interest is modeling human speech production on the basis of direct observations of the vocal-tract dynamic configuration, with a view to informing and enhancing speech technologies like synthesis, recognition, and speaker identification. He received his academic degrees in Thessaloniki, Greece: Diploma/MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1999, Aristotle University); MSc in Information Systems (2002, University of Macedonia); PhD in Applied Informatics (2007, University of Macedonia). Next, he occupied postdoctoral research positions in France, at LORIA and TELECOM ParisTech, before moving to Southern California in June 2012. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in journals and international conferences. He has also translated from English to Greek a book on mathematical finance, published a few poems, and sung for a little-known alternative rock band.
Host: Dr. Sandeep K. Gupta
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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MHI CommNetS seminar
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. G.P.Papavassilopoulos, National Technical University of Athens
Talk Title: University-Students Game
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to formulate and study a game where there is a player who is involved for a long time interval and several small players who stay in the game for short time intervals. Examples of such games abound in practice. For example a Bank is a long term player who stays in business for a very long time whereas most of its customers are affiliated with the Bank for relatively short time periods. A University and its Students provide another example and it is this model that we use here for motivating and posing the questions. The University is considered to have an infinite time horizon and the Students are considered as players who stay in the game for a fixed period of five years (indicative number). A class of Students who start their studies at a certain year is considered as one player /Student who is involved for five years. This player overlaps in action with the other students who entered at different years and with the University. We study this game in a Linear Quadratic, Deterministic, Discrete and Continuous Time setups, where the players use Linear Feedback Strategies and are in Nash or Stackelberg equilibrium, and where the Students have the same cost structure independently of the year they started their studies. An important feature of the solutions derived is that they lead to Riccati type equations for calculating the gains, which are interlaced in time i.e. their evolution depends on present and past values of the gains. In the continuous time setup this corresponds to integrodifferential equations.
Biography: G. P. Papavassilopoulos received the Diploma in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1975 and the MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1977 and 1979 respectively. In 1979 he joined the Dept. of Electrical Engineering-Systems of the University of Southern California as an Assistant Professor and was later promoted to Associate and Full Professor with tenure. In 2000 he joined the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens as Full Professor where he is also the director of the Control and Decision Laboratory. His basic areas of interest are Controls, Optimization, and Dynamic Games. A considerable part of his research is in the area of Dynamic Stochastic Games. He has also conducted research in Decentralized Adaptive Control, Robotics, Optimization Algorithms, Target Interception, Jamming, Stochastic Learning Automata, Linear Complementarity Problems and Bilinear Matrix Inequalities for Robust Control, Computational Complexity, Markovian Learning, Parallel Algorithms for Nonconvex Problems, Genetic Algorithms, and Nonlinear Filtering. He is also interested in applications to Biomedical Engineering, Economics, Organizational Structures, Energy and Telecommunication Policy, and Environmental Problems. (For more information: http://www.control.ece.ntua.gr/)
Host: Prof. Petros Ioannou
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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CS Colloquium: Arindam Banerjee (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) - Learning with Low Samples in High-Dimensions: Estimators, Geometry, and Applications
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Arindam Banerjee, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Talk Title: Learning with Low Samples in High-Dimensions: Estimators, Geometry, and Applications
Series: Yahoo! Labs Machine Learning Seminar Series
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium. Part of Yahoo! Labs Machine Learning Seminar Series.
Many machine learning problems, especially scientific problems in areas such as ecology, climate science, and brain sciences, operate in the so-called `low samples, high dimensions' regime. Such problems typically have numerous possible predictors or features, but the number of training examples is small, often much smaller than the number of features. In this talk, we will discuss recent advances in general formulations and estimators for such problems. These formulations generalize prior work such as the Lasso and the Dantzig selector. We will discuss the geometry underlying such formulations, and how the geometry helps in establishing finite sample properties of the estimators. We will also discuss applications of such results in structure learning in probabilistic graphical models, along with real world applications in ecology and climate science.
This is joint work with Soumyadeep Chatterjee, Sheng Chen, Farideh Fazayeli, Andre Goncalves, Jens Kattge, Igor Melnyk, Peter Reich, Franziska Schrodt, Hanhuai Shan, and Vidyashankar Sivakumar.
Biography: Arindam Banerjee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer & Engineering and a Resident Fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research interests are in statistical machine learning and data mining, and applications in complex real-world problems including climate science, ecology, recommendation systems, text analysis, brain sciences, finance, and aviation safety. He has won several awards, including the Adobe Research Award (2016), the IBM Faculty Award (2013), the NSF CAREER award (2010), and six Best Paper awards in top-tier conferences.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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EE 598 Computer Engineering Seminar
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nickolai Zeldovich, Associate Professor, MIT
Talk Title: Certifying a Crash-Safe File System
Abstract: Users and applications rely on file systems to store their data, but file systems themselves can have bugs that lead to data loss, especially after a system crashes and restarts.
This talk will describe our work on FSCQ, the first file system that (1) comes with a precise specification of its behavior, including what can occur after a crash, and that (2) provides a machine-checked proof that its implementation meets this precise specification, using the Coq proof assistant. FSCQ's proofs avoid crash-safety bugs that have plagued file systems, such as forgetting to insert a disk write barrier between writing the data to the log and writing the log's commit block. FSCQ's specification also allows applications to prove their own crash safety, avoiding application-level bugs such as forgetting to invoke fsync on both the file and the containing directory. As a result, applications on FSCQ can provide strong guarantees: they will not lose data under any sequence of crashes.
Our experimental evaluation shows that the FSCQ prototype achieves reasonable I/O performance, on par with Linux ext4, and that, empirically, the theorems appear to work: FSCQ can recover from all possible crashes for small test programs, and FSCQ passes a variety of stress tests. One limitation of the FSCQ prototype is its high CPU overhead, owing to its use of Haskell for generating executable code.
Biography: Nickolai Zeldovich is an Associate Professor at MIT's department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research interests are in building practical secure systems, from operating systems and hardware to programming languages and security analysis tools. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2008, where he developed HiStar, an operating system designed to minimize the amount of trusted code by controlling information flow. In 2005, he co-founded MokaFive, a company focused on improving desktop management and mobility using x86 virtualization.
Host: Xuehai Qian
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - OHE 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Information Session in Birmingham, U.K.
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Interested in graduate studies in engineering or computer science?
Candidates with a strong academic background and a Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or physical science (such as physics, biology, or chemistry) are welcome to attend an information session to learn more about applying to graduate engineering programs at the University of Southern California.
These events will be hosted by Kelly Goulis, Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Recruitment at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
The session will include information on the following topics:
- Master's & Ph.D. programs in engineering and computer science
- How to Apply
- Scholarships and funding
- Student life at USC and in Los Angeles
There will also be sufficient time for questions.
Please contact us at viterbi.gradprograms@usc.edu if you have any inquiries about the event.
REGISTER NOWLocation: Hotel La Tour, Birmingham, U.K.
Audiences: Prospective students with a background in engineering, math or hard science
Contact: Mary Kae/Graduate and Professional Programs
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Facebook Panel at USC
Thu, Nov 17, 2016 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Workshops & Infosessions
As the semester is coming to a close, Facebook would like to invite you to take a break from your homework and projects and join us for a couple hours of free food, free swag, and (free) mingling with full-time Facebook engineers.
If you're curious about engineering opportunities at Facebook, whether it be for an internship or full-time job, this is the event for you! There will be a panel-style Q&A session, followed by catered snacks, so bring both your questions and your appetite. Undergrad and grad students welcome.
Brought to you by the USC Facebook Campus AmbassadorsLocation: Mark Taper Hall Of Humanities (THH) - 201
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ryan Rozan
