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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November
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Biomedical Engineering Speakers
Tue, Nov 01, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Melissa L. Knothe Tate, Ph.D, Paul Trainor Chair of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales
Talk Title: Novel Biotech Approaches to Engineer Cell Mediated Tissue Genesis and Next Generation Materials
Abstract: Cells, tissues and organs show remarkable smart properties including the capacity not only to sense but also to adapt to environmental stimuli by changing their own structure1-4. For instance, the periosteum is a pre-stressed but also hyperelastic, soft sleeve bounding all nonarticular bony surfaces2. The periosteum confers "super strength" to bones under impact loads2,5. It also serves as a quiescent niche for stem cells that appears to trigger stem cell egression via mechanical cues intrinsic to its structure6. Smart material properties, inherent to biological materials such as periosteal tissue, emerge from the manufacture of raw materials and the building of complex architectures by cells4. Recent advances in coupled multimodel imaging, computational modeling and experimental mechanics are unraveling the multiscale mechanobiology underpinning such emergent functional behavior. Here we discuss three examples, including stem cell mechanomics (the mechanics equivalent of the genome)7 and weaving of novel functional textiles inspired by the architecture and scaled up patterns of the natural structural protein fibers of the periosteum8.
Biography: Professor Knothe Tate was recruited in July 2013 to become the inaugural Paul Trainor Chair of Biomedical Engineering at UNSW. Paul Trainor was the founder of the med tech industry in Australia, and the Trainor Chair was endowed to follow that legacy and to stimulate innovation and commercialisation in Australia's biomedical technology sector. Professor Knothe Tate has led a number of international biotech initiatives, integrating next generation implants with stem cell, orthopaedics and systems biology initiatives, through the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the National Academy of Engineering's Consortium with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. She has a track record of leadership in strategic planning, innovation, R&D translation and educational program quality assessment for federal agencies (Australian Research Council's Excellence for Research in Australia), medical associations (American Association of Orthopaedic Surgery), private foundations (AO and Coulter Foundations), clinics (Cleveland Clinic), universities (Trinity College Dublin Innovation and Next Generation Medical Devices Theme), and industry (e.g. Harvard Apparatus, Leica Microsystems, Zeiss Microscopy). She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and Engineers Australia, all fellow-elected roles denoting the top tier of the profession.
Professor Knothe Tate has been awarded a number of prizes and honors related to the clinical translation and innovation including the Walter H. Coulter Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship for a novel composition and method for inducing bone growth and healing (Semifinalist). She also earned the Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award for an R&D technology that she invented and later commercialized in partnership with Harvard Apparatus. In addition, she was awarded the AO Foundation Research Fund Prize Award for her studies of periosteum and engineering of novel surgical implants, as well as the Christopher Columbus Foundation -“ U.S. Chamber of Commerce Life Sciences Award (2011) for commercialisation of the same, disruptive technology for which a U.S. patent was issued and international patents are pending. She has been awarded 3 international utility patents and has 2 patents pending, all for disruptive technologies and has published more than 75 peer reviewed journal articles, 7 book chapters as well as over 200 peer reviewed conference proceedings. She has given over 150 invited talks worldwide, including 18 keynote and plenary talks at leading technology and R&D conferences.
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Daniel Lim, University of California, San Francisco
Tue, Nov 01, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Daniel Lim, University of California, San Francisco
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminarWebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminar
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
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CS Colloquium: Klaus Havelund (NASA) - A Notation and System for Inferring Event Stream Abstractions
Tue, Nov 01, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Klaus Havelund, NASA
Talk Title: A Notation and System for Inferring Event Stream Abstractions
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
We propose a notation for specifying event stream abstractions for use in spacecraft telemetry processing. Our work is motivated by the need to quickly process streams with millions of events generated by the Curiosity rover on Mars. The approach builds a hierarchy of event abstractions for telemetry visualization and querying to aid human comprehension. Such abstractions can also be used as input to other runtime verification tools. Our notation is inspired by Allen's Temporal Logic, and provides a rule-based declarative way to express event abstractions. The system is written in Scala, with the specification language implemented as an internal DSL. It is based on parallel executing actors communicating via a publish-subscribe model. We illustrate the solution with several examples.
Biography: Klaus Havelund is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. He has worked in the domain of software correctness for over three decades, and has worked at NASA for nearly two decades. He was affiliated with NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley for eight years, before moving to JPL in Los Angeles. He has published over 120 papers and is an active member of the software verification research community. He special interests include techniques for monitoring actual systems behaviors, matching against expected behaviors, and more generally techniques for detecting errors in software programs.
Host: Chao Wang
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Ming Hsieh Institute Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Wed, Nov 02, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Nanpeng Yu, UC Riverside
Talk Title: Enabling Smart Energy Communities with Proactive Demand Participation and Distribution System Operator Market
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: This talk focuses on proactive demand participation and distribution system market design. An innovative customer interaction scheme called proactive demand participation is developed. Under the proactive demand participation framework, an intelligent energy scheduling agent take initiative to convert control models for flexible loads and customer preferences into price sensitive demand bids. This new scheme allows customers to actively express and communicate their electricity consumption preferences to the distribution system/market operators and participate in the wholesale market dispatch and price formation process. A distribution system market design, a three-phase iterative direct current optimal power flow algorithm with fictitious nodal demand and three-phase LMP decomposition method will be presented.
Biography: Dr. Yu received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2006. Dr. Yu also received his M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics and Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University in 2010. Before joining University of California, Riverside, Dr. Yu was a senior power system planner and project manager at Southern California Edison from Jan, 2011 to July 2014. Currently, he is a tenure track assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, CA.
Host: Dr. Insoon Yang
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Biotechnology Lecture SeriesThu, Nov 03, 2016 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Various, Amgen
Talk Title: R&D Insights from Lab Bench to Patient Bedside
Abstract: USC researchers have the opportunity to gain research and development insights with a new biotechnology lecture series sponsored by Amgen and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC.
The weekly lecture series, "R&D Insights from Lab Bench to Patient Bedside" takes place Thursdays at 10:30AM-12:00PM at USC's Health Sciences Campus from September 1, 2016 through November 10, 2016.
The talks will feature Amgen scientists speaking about:
Identifying a possible therapeutic target and its role in disease
Increasing therapeutic efficacy and safety
Process development, devices and manufacturing
Case studies from bench to clinic
Lectures will take place at the BCC First Floor Seminar Room or ZNI Herklotz Seminar Room.
RSVP at http://www.usc.edu/esvp (use code: amgenlecture). Space is limited. Preference will be given to SCRM master's students, PhDs, and postdocs, and attending all lectures is mandatory.
Please contact qliumich@usc.edu or karenw03@amgen.com for further details.
Host: USC Stem Cell/Amgen
More Info: https://calendar.usc.edu/event/biotechnology_lecture_series_rd_insights_from_lab_bench_to_patient_bedside?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=USC+Event+Calendar#.V8dKNLX8vW4
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
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AI Seminar-The Crisis in Statistics and the Reliability of Published Results
Fri, Nov 04, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Alan Garfinkel, UCLA
Talk Title: The Crisis in Statistics and the Reliability of Published Results
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: Medicine and biology are currently in a crisis. Many if not most published studies contain false or irreproducible information, and articles have appeared in major journals with titles like, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.
A major contributor to this crisis is Bad Statistics. A large fraction of published papers use statistical methods that are simply wrong. The most frequent error is the use of formula-based statistical tests, like t-tests, regression, ANOVA etc. to give p values on data for which they cannot be used, because the data is either markedly non-Gaussian or too small to tell. These p-value calculation errors are currently being addressed by major journals, which have recently greatly tightened their statistical reviewing, and are insisting upon appropriate statistical methods, such as resampling-based test for non-Gaussian data.
But a much deeper criticism focuses on the very idea of p-values, however calculated. Many respected sources are calling for an end to p-values as the test for publishability. Phenomena like p-hacking are common, and advanced thinking now holds that the very idea of p-values is the problem. Several journals are now refusing to accept p-values as evidence of the existence of a phenomenon, and even the American Statistical Association has issued warnings about p-values.
We will review the situation, assess the extent of the damage, and discuss proposed fixes for this serious problem.
Biography: Dr. Garfinkel graduated from Cornell and received his PhD from Harvard in philosophy and mathematics. He is particularly interested in nonlinear dynamics and its applications to medicine.
Host: Gully Burns
Webcast: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/00f1e452277f416186bf9b6743e650131dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
WebCast Link: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/00f1e452277f416186bf9b6743e650131d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
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Biomedical Engineering Speakers
Fri, Nov 04, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Neda Jahanshad, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, USC Keck School of Medicine
Talk Title: The Genetics of Human Structural Brain Connectivity
Abstract: Approximately half the variability in the gross structure of the human brain is influenced by genetics. Yet, the brain operates as a network, with adjacent and distal regions of the brain being physically connected to varying degrees. These connections, or perhaps misconnections in the brain, not only have the potential to cause miscommunication of information in the brain and put the brain at risk for diseases, they are too partially driven by common genetic differences. Discovery of genes that help influence brain structure may help target treatments and therapies. Using structural MRI as well as diffusion weighted imaging scans and analyses methods, we are able to model these connections and make inferences on the connectivity profile itself and topological aspects of the network. However, in order to identify and discover specific loci within our genomes that may explain less than one percent of the population variance in the degree of the brain's richly informative connectivity patterns, an extremely high degree of statistical power is needed. This power is readily achieved with large sample sizes, however such power is not seen in any single imaging study to date. We therefore need to reliably pool together inferences from brain scans from around the world, harmonizing much of the analysis procedure and ensuring the precision and reliability of the connectomic measures we evaluate. Here, we will further discuss the challenges that face the imaging genetics community, and potential advances that may be brought forth with biomedical engineering approaches.
Host: Brent Liu, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Munushian Seminar - Philip Wong, Friday, November 4th in EEB 132 at 2:00pm
Fri, Nov 04, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Philip Wong, Stanford University
Talk Title: Computing Performance: N3XT 1,000x
Abstract: 21st century information technology (IT) must process, understand, classify, and organize vast amount of data in realtime.
21st century applications will be dominated by memory-centric computing operating on Tbytes of active data with little
data locality. At the same time, massively redundant sensor arrays sampling the world around us will give humans the perception
of additional "senses" blurring the boundary between biological, physical, and cyber worlds. Abundant-data processing, which
comprises real-time big-data analytics and the processing of perceptual data in wearable devices, clearly demands computation
efficiencies well beyond what can be achieved through business as usual.
The key elements of a scalable, fast, and energy-efficient computation platform that may provide another 1,000x in computing
performance (energy-execution time product) for future computing workloads are: massive on-chip memory co-located with highly
energy-efficient computation, enabled by monolithic 3D integration using ultra-dense and fine-grained massive connectivity. There
will be multiple layers of analog and digital memories interleaved with computing logic, sensors, and application-specific devices.
We call this technology platform N3XT - Nanoengineered Computing Systems Technology. N3XT will support computing
architectures that embrace sparsity, stochasticity, and device variability.
In this talk, I will give an overview of nanoscale memory and logic technologies for implementing N3XT. I will give examples of
nanosystems that have been built using these technologies, and provide projections on their eventual performance.
Biography: H.-S. Philip Wong is the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of
Engineering. He joined Stanford University as Professor of Electrical Engineering in September,
2004. From 1988 to 2004, he was with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
At IBM, he held various positions from Research Staff Member to Manager and Senior Manager.
While he was Senior Manager, he had the responsibility of shaping and executing IBM's strategy
on nanoscale science and technology as well as exploratory silicon devices and semiconductor
technology.
Professor Wong's research aims at translating discoveries in science into practical technologies.
His works have contributed to advancements in nanoscale science and technology, semiconductor
technology, solid-state devices, and electronic imaging.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Fri, Nov 04, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Clemens Heitzinger, Ph.D., Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing, Technical University Vienna
Talk Title: Stochastic PDEs, Multiscale Problems, and Optimal Numerical Methods
Abstract: See attachment
More Information: CEE Seminar_ Clemens Heitzinger.docx
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 07, 2016 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Joshua Tobin, MD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology
Talk Title: Engineering Applications for Military Critical Care
Biography: http://www.keckmedicine.org/doctor/joshua-m-tobin/
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Papamichael, Researcher at Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Catapult: Powering the World's First Hyperscale Configurable Cloud
Abstract: Project Catapult is the technology behind Microsoft's hyperscale acceleration fabric that uses reconï¬gurable logic to accelerate both network plane functions and applications. In this Conï¬gurable Cloud architecture a layer of reconï¬gurable logic (FPGAs) is placed between the network switches and the servers, enabling network ï¬ows to be programmably transformed at line rate, enabling acceleration of local applications running on the server, and enabling the FPGAs to communicate directly, at datacenter scale, to harvest remote FPGAs unused by their local servers. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the Catapult project, discuss the evolution of our acceleration fabric, and highlight examples of how we are using our Configurable Cloud to offer enhanced networking functionality and accelerate datacenter applications and services
Biography: Michael K. Papamichael is a Researcher at Microsoft Research working on the Catapult project. His research interests are in the broader area of computer architecture with emphasis on hardware acceleration, reconfigurable computing, on-chip interconnects, and methodologies to facilitate hardware specialization. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Papamichael, Researcher at Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Catapult: Powering the World's First Hyperscale Configurable Cloud
Abstract: Project Catapult is the technology behind Microsoft's hyperscale acceleration fabric that uses reconï¬gurable logic to accelerate both network plane functions and applications. In this Conï¬gurable Cloud architecture a layer of reconï¬gurable logic (FPGAs) is placed between the network switches and the servers, enabling network ï¬ows to be programmably transformed at line rate, enabling acceleration of local applications running on the server, and enabling the FPGAs to communicate directly, at datacenter scale, to harvest remote FPGAs unused by their local servers. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the Catapult project, discuss the evolution of our acceleration fabric, and highlight examples of how we are using our Configurable Cloud to offer enhanced networking functionality and accelerate datacenter applications and services
Biography: Michael K. Papamichael is a Researcher at Microsoft Research working on the Catapult project. His research interests are in the broader area of computer architecture with emphasis on hardware acceleration, reconfigurable computing, on-chip interconnects, and methodologies to facilitate hardware specialization. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Papamichael, Researcher at Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Catapult: Powering the World's First Hyperscale Configurable Cloud
Abstract: Project Catapult is the technology behind Microsoft's hyperscale acceleration fabric that uses reconï¬gurable logic to accelerate both network plane functions and applications. In this Conï¬gurable Cloud architecture a layer of reconï¬gurable logic (FPGAs) is placed between the network switches and the servers, enabling network ï¬ows to be programmably transformed at line rate, enabling acceleration of local applications running on the server, and enabling the FPGAs to communicate directly, at datacenter scale, to harvest remote FPGAs unused by their local servers. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the Catapult project, discuss the evolution of our acceleration fabric, and highlight examples of how we are using our Configurable Cloud to offer enhanced networking functionality and accelerate datacenter applications and services.
Biography: Michael K. Papamichael is a Researcher at Microsoft Research working on the Catapult project. His research interests are in the broader area of computer architecture with emphasis on hardware acceleration, reconfigurable computing, on-chip interconnects, and methodologies to facilitate hardware specialization. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Papamichael, Researcher at Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Catapult: Powering the World's First Hyperscale Configurable Cloud
Abstract: Project Catapult is the technology behind Microsoft's hyperscale acceleration fabric that uses reconï¬gurable logic to accelerate both network plane functions and applications. In this Conï¬gurable Cloud architecture a layer of reconï¬gurable logic (FPGAs) is placed between the network switches and the servers, enabling network ï¬ows to be programmably transformed at line rate, enabling acceleration of local applications running on the server, and enabling the FPGAs to communicate directly, at datacenter scale, to harvest remote FPGAs unused by their local servers. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the Catapult project, discuss the evolution of our acceleration fabric, and highlight examples of how we are using our Configurable Cloud to offer enhanced networking functionality and accelerate datacenter applications and services.
Biography: Michael K. Papamichael is a Researcher at Microsoft Research working on the Catapult project. His research interests are in the broader area of computer architecture with emphasis on hardware acceleration, reconfigurable computing, on-chip interconnects, and methodologies to facilitate hardware specialization. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBD, TBD
Host: Professional Programs
More Info: https://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%2526systems/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement)
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Erin Tanaka
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Steve Kay, USC
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Steve Kay, USC
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminarWebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminar
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
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CS Colloquium: Robert D. Nowak (University of Wisconsin-Madison) - A Notation and System for Inferring Event Stream Abstractions
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Robert D. Nowak, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Talk Title: Learning Human Preferences and Perceptions From Data
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
Modeling human perception has many applications in cognitive, social, and educational science, as well as in advertising and commerce. This talk discusses theory and methods for learning rankings and embeddings representing perceptions from datasets of human judgments, such as ratings or comparisons. I will briefly describe an ongoing large-scale experiment with the New Yorker magazine that deals with ranking cartoon captions using on our nextml.org system. Then I will discuss our recent work on ordinal embedding, also known as non-metric multidimensional scaling, which is the problem of representing items (e.g., images) as points in a low-dimensional Euclidean space given constraints of the form "item i is closer to item j than item k." In other words, the goal is to find a geometric representation of data that is faithful to comparative similarity judgments. This classic problem is often used to gauge and visualize perceptual similarities. A variety of algorithms exist for learning metric embeddings from comparison data, but the accuracy and performance of these methods were poorly understood. I will present a new theoretical framework that quantifies the accuracy of learned embeddings and indicates how many comparisons suffice as a function of the number of items and the dimension of the embedding. Furthermore, the theory points to new algorithms that outperform previously proposed methods. I will also describe a few applications of ordinal embedding.
This joint work with Lalit Jain and Kevin Jamieson.
http://nextml.org/assets/next.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.07081v1.pdf
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mikhail Chester, Ph.D., Arizona State University
Talk Title: Impacts of Climate Change on Electricity Generation, Transmission Capacity and Peak Electricity Load in the United States
Host: Dr. Kelly Sanders
More Information: ENE Seminar_Dr, Mikhail Chester.docx
Location: Social Sciences Building (SOS) - B2
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Epstein Institute Seminar
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Hani Mahmassani, Northwestern University
Talk Title: AutonomousVehicles & Connected Systems: Shared Fleet Mobility Models & Flow Implications
Host: Dr. Maged Dessouky
More Information: November 8, 2016_Mahmassani.pdf
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Michele ISE
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Amazon Information Session
Tue, Nov 08, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA, Amazon
Talk Title: Amazon Information Session
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. IMDbPro https://secure.imdb.com/signup/index.html?r=/) is the essential resource for entertainment industry professionals. This membership-based service includes comprehensive information and tools that are designed to help entertainment industry professionals achieve success throughout all stages of their career. Additionally, IMDb owns and operates Withoutabox (https://www.withoutabox.com/), the premier submission service for film festivals and filmmakers, and Box Office Mojo (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/), the leading online box-office reporting service.
Please join us as a panel of industry experts discusses these and other exciting opportunities.
Biography: Unnati Sethi (moderator)
Unnati Sethi is a Software Development Manager at IMDb.com where she leads a team of engineers focused on deprecating legacy software and building highly interactive and creative end-user facing systems for film industry professionals. She has a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and over fifteen years of experience building software with cross-geographical, multi-cultural teams of varying sizes. She is a vocal advocate for diversity in the technology and entertainment industry and is actively involved in recruitment and diversity outreach initiatives at IMDb and Amazon.
Marty Bower
Marty has over 20 years of experience as a software development engineer and a software development manager, building applications and leading teams in full lifecycle software development. He's worked at IMDb since January of this year, and previously for large financial technology companies like Intuit. He enjoys leading a team in developing an application that is revolutionizing how film festivals process and judge submissions, and help filmmakers get discovered.
Shlomi Yehezkel
Shlomi has been with Amazon for 4+ years now; he joined Amazon as an SDE and has worked with 3 different teams: first with Ad Analytics, where he was responsible for analyzing the performance of advertisements campaigns, then with Amazon Payments, where he worked with the gift card team and, finally, his current position with IMDbPro where he owns the back end systems. Shlomi transitioned to being a Software Development Manager on IMDbPro earlier this year.
Shlomi loves to work on the logic layer which is the layer between the presentation layer to the data layer.
Jerome Core
Jerome is the Customer Service Manager for all IMDb brands. Jerome joined the team in 2014, bringing over ten years of customer service experience. A native Angelino, Jerome has worked with many ecommerce businesses including Internet Brands, Campus Explorer, and online fashion retailer Farfetch.com
Bishnu Kumar
Bishnu is a Sr. Product Manager at IMDb who manages the IMDbPro business. Bishnu joined Amazon Customer Return team in Seattle in 2015 and internally-transferred to the IMDb LA team last month. In 2014 he was a MBA intern in Amazon and prior to that he worked at Samsung in the software development and commercialization of Android handsets.
Christian Sosa-lanz
Christian has been at Amazon for 2 years, working with the Withoutabox team. Prior to that he has been working in the UX field for 15 years designing Disney MagicBands, NordstromRack and physical interfaces. On his off time, he digs into architecture and tinkers with IoT.
Host: CS Department
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Wed, Nov 09, 2016 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBD, TBD
Host: Professional Programs
More Info: https://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%2526systems/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement)
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Erin Tanaka
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Ming Hsieh Institute Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Wed, Nov 09, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Christopher Miller, UC Berkeley
Talk Title: Optimal precommitment strategies in some time-inconsistent control problems
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: Time-inconsistency is a feature of a dynamic optimization problem which causes the Dynamic Programming Principle to fail. This arises in many applications including dynamic optimization of certain risk measures (e.g., conditional value-at-risk, mean-variance, etc.) and problems whose objective function depends non-linearly on an expected value. There are various interpretations and notions of solution to a time-inconsistent problem. In this talk, we focus on optimal precommitment strategies in continuous-time and demonstrate cases where the time-inconsistent problem may be re-written as an optimization problem over the value function of an auxiliary time-consistent optimization problem. While the auxiliary value function typically has a higher dimensional state space, we discuss instances where structure of the problem allows a dimensionality reduction.
Biography: Christopher W. Miller is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he received a B.S. in Mathematics and Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on applications of partial differential equations and optimal stochastic control, particularly in mathematical finance.
Host: Prof. Insoon Yang
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Six Sigma Green Belt for Process Improvement
Thu, Nov 10, 2016 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBD, TBD
Host: Professional Programs
More Info: https://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%2526systems/six-sigma-green-belt-process-improvement)
Audiences: Registered Attendees
Contact: Erin Tanaka
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AI Seminar-TASK-GUIDED HETEROGENEOUS INFORMATION NETWORK EMBEDDING
Thu, Nov 10, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yizhou Sun, UCLA
Talk Title: TASK-GUIDED HETEROGENEOUS INFORMATION NETWORK EMBEDDING
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: One of the challenges in mining information networks is the lack of intrinsic metric in representing nodes into a low dimensional space, which is essential in many mining tasks, such as anomaly detection, recommendation, and link prediction. Moreover, when coming to heterogeneous information networks, where nodes belong to different types and links represent different semantic meanings, it is even more challenging to represent nodes properly for a particular task. In this talk, I will introduce our recent progress of network embedding approaches that are designed for heterogeneous information networks and guided by specific tasks, and discuss (1) how to represent nodes when different types of nodes and links are involved; (2) how different tasks can guide the embedding process; and (3) how heterogeneous links play different roles in these tasks. Our results on several application domains, including enterprise networking, social network, bibliographic data, and biomedical data, have demonstrated the superiority as well as the interpretability of these new methodologies.
Biography: Yizhou Sun is an assistant professor at department of computer science of UCLA. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor in the College of Computer and Information Science of Northeastern University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012. Her principal research interest is in mining information and social networks, and more generally in data mining, machine learning, and network science, with a focus on modeling novel problems and proposing scalable algorithms for large-scale, real-world applications. Yizhou has over 60 publications in books, journals, and major conferences. Tutorials on mining heterogeneous information networks have been given in several premier conferences, including EDBT 2009, SIGMOD 2010, KDD 2010, ICDE 2012, VLDB 2012, ASONAM 2012, and ACL 2015. She received 2012 ACM SIGKDD Best Student Paper Award, 2013 ACM SIGKDD Doctoral Dissertation Award, 2013 Yahoo ACE (Academic Career Enhancement) Award, 2015 NSF CAREER Award, and 2016 CS@ILLINOIS Distinguished Educator Award.
Host: Emilio Ferrara
More Info: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/ce533b93329d4c65bb73697f53ebeb541d
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/ce533b93329d4c65bb73697f53ebeb541d
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Lyman L. Handy Colloquia
Thu, Nov 10, 2016 @ 12:45 PM - 01:50 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. David Srolovitz , University of Pennslyvania
Talk Title: Grand Unified Theory of Grain Boundaries
Series: Lyman Handy Colloquia
Host: Professor Priya Vashishta
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Martin Olekszyk
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EE 598 Computer Engineering Seminar
Thu, Nov 10, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jason Cong, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Talk Title: Customizable Computing at Datacenter Scale
Abstract: Customizable computing has been of interest to the research community for over three decades. The interest has intensified in the recent years as the power and energy become a significant limiting factor to the computing industry. For example, the energy consumed by the datacenters of some large internet service providers is well over 109 Kilowatt-hours. FPGA-based acceleration has shown 10-100X performance/energy efficiency over the general-purpose processors in many applications. With Intel's $17B acquisition of Altera completed in December 2015, customizable computing is going from advanced research projects into mainstream computing technologies.
In this talk, I shall first present evaluation of several CPU+FPGA platforms for datacenter level integration, and the acceleration results in multiple application domains, including medical imaging, machine learning, and computational genomics. Programming effort remains to be a serious challenge. So, the second part of my talk discusses our ongoing effort in automating compilation with source-code level transformation and optimization coupled with high-level synthesis, as well as developing efficient runtime support for scheduling and transparent resource management for integration of FPGAs for cloud-scale acceleration.
Biography: Jason Cong received his B.S. degree in computer science from Peking University in 1985, his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987 and 1990, respectively. Currently, he is a Chancellor's Professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department, the director of Center for Customizable Domain-Specific Computing (CDSC). He served as the department chair from 2005 to 2008. Dr. Cong's research interests include electronic design automation, energy-efficient computing, customized computing for big-data applications, and highly scalable algorithms. He has over 400 publications in these areas, including 10 best paper awards, and the 2011 ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electric Design Automation. He was elected to an IEEE Fellow in 2000 and ACM Fellow in 2008. He received the 2010 IEEE Circuits and System (CAS) Society Technical Achievement Award "For seminal contributions to electronic design automation, especially in FPGA synthesis, VLSI interconnect optimization, and physical design automation" and the 2016 IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award "For setting the algorithmic foundations for high-level synthesis of field programmable gate arrays." He is the only one who received a Technical Achievement Award from both the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and the Computer Society.
Dr. Cong has graduated 34 PhD students. Nine of them are now faculty members in major research universities, including Cornell, Fudan Univ., Georgia Tech., Peking Univ., Purdue, SUNY Binghamton, UCLA, UIUC, and UT Austin. One of them is now an IEEE Fellow, six of them got the highly competitive NSF Career Award, and one of them received the ACM SIGDA Outstanding Dissertation Award. Dr. Cong has successfully co-founded three companies with his students, including Aplus Design Technologies for FPGA physical synthesis and architecture evaluation (acquired by Magma in 2003, now part of Synopsys), AutoESL Design Technologies for high-level synthesis (acquired by Xilinx in 2011), and Neptune Design Automation for ultra-fast FPGA physical design (acquired by Xilinx in 2013). Currently, he is a co-founder and the chief scientific advisor of Falcon Computing Solutions, a startup dedicated to enabling FPGA-based customized computing in data centers.
Host: Xuehai Qian
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - OHE 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel Series,
Fri, Nov 11, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Doctoral Programs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mentoring Panel, Viterbi Faculty and Postdocs
Abstract: Academe is changing, and doctoral graduates in engineering are presented with a wider array of career opportunities than ever before. The Academic Career Mentoring Panel series was created to assist Ph.D. students and Postdocs with career choices. The Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel will focus on Postdoc positions, including what you can do in your early, middle and late Ph.D. program that will help you leverage and land a Postdoc position after graduation.
USC Viterbi faculty and Postdoc panelists will discuss their experience and advise current Ph.D. student and Postdocs on their search for Postdoc positions. The panel will be moderated by Vice Dean of Faculty Affairs, Timothy Pinkston.
The Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel will be held:
Friday, November 11, 2016
12:00 noon-1:45pm
SGM 123
Host: Moderated by Vice Dean Timothy Pinkston
More Info: https://gapp.usc.edu/academiccareermentoringpanelseries
More Information: Fall 2016 flyer small.pdf
Location: 123
Audiences: Ph.D. and Postdoctoral
Contact: Tracy Charles
Event Link: https://gapp.usc.edu/academiccareermentoringpanelseries
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Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel Series,
Fri, Nov 11, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:45 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Doctoral Programs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mentoring Panel, Viterbi Faculty and Postdocs
Talk Title: "Preparing for Finding and Leveraging a Postdoc Position
Abstract: Academe is changing, and doctoral graduates in engineering are presented with a wider array of career opportunities than ever before. The Academic Career Mentoring Panel series was created to assist Ph.D. students and Postdocs with career choices. The Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel will focus on Postdoc positions, including what you can do in your early, middle and late Ph.D. program that will help you leverage and land a Postdoc position after graduation.
USC Viterbi faculty and Postdoc panelists will discuss their experience and advise current Ph.D. student and Postdocs on their search for Postdoc positions. The panel will be moderated by Vice Dean of Faculty Affairs, Timothy Pinkston.
The Fall 2016 Academic Career Mentoring Panel will be held:
Friday, November 11, 2016
12:00 noon-1:45pm
SGM 123
Host: Moderated by Vice Dean Timothy Pinkston
More Info: https://gapp.usc.edu/academiccareermentoringpanelseries
More Information: Fall 2016 flyer small.pdf
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Ph.D. and Postdoctoral
Contact: Tracy Charles
Event Link: https://gapp.usc.edu/academiccareermentoringpanelseries
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Biomedical Engineering Speakers
Fri, Nov 11, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA, TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Host: Brent Liu, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Biomedical Engineering Speakers
Mon, Nov 14, 2016 @ 03:00 AM - 04:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Shuming Nie, Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, and Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Engineering Unusual Properties on the Nanoscale: from Single-Molecule Raman Spectroscopy to Smart Molecular Imaging Probes
Series: Biomedical Engineering Special Seminar
Abstract: Materials on the nanometer scale such as quantum dots, plasmonic nanostructures, and polymeric nanomicelles have electronic, optical, magnetic, and structural properties that are not available from either discrete molecules or bulk materials. When conjugated with targeting ligands such as monoclonal antibodies, peptides or small molecules, these nanoparticles can be used to target malignant tumor cells and the immune microenvironments with high specificity and affinity. In the "mesoscopic" size range of 1 to 100 nm, nanoparticles also have large surface areas for conjugating to multiple diagnostic and therapeutic agents, opening new possibilities in chemical sensing, molecular imaging, and targeted therapy. Here I will discuss new strategies for engineering unusual and emergent properties that are possible only on the nanometer scale. In particular, we have developed spectrally encoded and biocompatible nanoparticles based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for single-molecule, single-nanoparticle, and single-cell studies under in-vivo physiological conditions. We have also developed a class of activatable or "smart" fluorescent nanoparticles with ultrahigh pH sensitivity for targeting the acidic tumor microenvironments as well as for guiding cancer surgery in real time. (Supported by NIH grants U54CA119338, RC2CA148265, R01CA108468, and R01CA163256).
Biography: Dr. Nie is the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Director of the Emory-Georgia Tech Cancer Nanotechnology Program, and Founding Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences of Nanjing University (China). His academic work is primarily in the areas of nanomedicine, biomolecular engineering, stimuli-responsive materials, molecular and cellular imaging, and image-guided surgery. Professor Nie has published over 300 papers, patents, and book chapters, have delivered more than 400 invited lectures around the world, and have trained over 30 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows who are now making an impact at top academic institutions and biotech companies. His scholarly work has been cited 53,000 times with an h-index of 83 (Google Scholar). Professor Nie received his BS degree from Nankai University (China) in 1983, earned his MS and PhD degrees from Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois, 1984-1990), and did postdoctoral research at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Stanford University (1990-1994).
Host: Ellis Meng, PhD
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 460
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloquium: Hal Daumé III (UMD) - Learning Language through Interaction
Mon, Nov 14, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hal Daumé III, UMD
Talk Title: Learning Language through Interaction
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.
Machine learning-based natural language processing systems are amazingly effective, when plentiful labeled training data exists for the task/domain of interest. Unfortunately, for broad coverage (both in task and domain) language understanding, we're unlikely to ever have sufficient labeled data, and systems must find some other way to learn. I'll describe a novel algorithm for learning from interactions, and several problems of interest, most notably machine simultaneous interpretation (translation while someone is still speaking). This is all joint work with some amazing (former) students He He, Alvin Grissom II, John Morgan, Mohit Iyyer, Sudha Rao and Leonardo Claudino, as well as colleagues Jordan Boyd-Graber, Kai-Wei Chang, John Langford, Akshay Krishnamurthy, Alekh Agarwal, Stéphane Ross, Alina Beygelzimer and Paul Mineiro.
Biography: Hal Daume III is an associate professor in Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He holds joint appointments in UMIACS and Linguistics. He was previously an assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah. His primary research interest is in developing new learning algorithms for prototypical problems that arise in the context of language processing and artificial intelligence. This includes topics like structured prediction, domain adaptation and unsupervised learning; as well as multilingual modeling and affect analysis. He associates himself most with conferences like ACL, ICML, NIPS and EMNLP. He earned his PhD at the University of Southern California with a thesis on structured prediction for language (his advisor was Daniel Marcu). He spent the summer of 2003 working with Eric Brill in the machine learning and applied statistics group at Microsoft Research. Prior to that, he studied math (mostly logic) at Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 14, 2016 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jesse Yen, PhD, USC BME Faculty
Talk Title: Ultrasound Imaging
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 14, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh, Principal Research Engineer , Toyota Technical Center
Talk Title: Formal Reasoning for the Cyber-Physical Systems of Tomorrow
Abstract: As cyberphysical systems (CPS) researchers, we are in the process of shaping human societies of tomorrow. Smart transportation infrastructures, autonomous driving cars, medical devices, avionics systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, smart agriculture are just a few examples of technologies that will have a major impact on how we will lead our lives. CPS is not just a buzzword: it truly represents a convergence of a number of separate streams of science and engineering. Today, building a smart CPS requires a deep understanding of the physical aspects of the system being controlled in addition to being able to program intelligence into the controlling software. Increasingly, such software combines sophisticated algorithms from control theory with machine learning and AI algorithms. Often, system designers also have to model the underlying communication between the physical and the cyber worlds. The result is that even the simplest closed-loop model of a CPS is very complex and typically not amenable to reasoning in a formal sense. The burning question is: how do we increase our confidence in the correctness of system-designs with such complexities when even their models are not amenable to rigorous mathematical reasoning? This talk gives some directions to tackle this problem in the setting of model-based development of CPS designs.
Correctness of engineered systems is typically judged in an application-specific and manual fashion; a key step before we can formally reason about system correctness is to have a formalism to express correctness of the CPS being designed. We will discuss the use of logical formalisms based on real-time temporal logics as a possible requirement language for the CPS domain. The other main challenge is to automate the process of testing and finding undesirable behavior with respect to a given set of requirements. We will look at how the use of logical formalisms can greatly aid test automation and in some specific cases give formal guarantees. We will conclude by considering the data deluge problem for CPS; we will suggest techniques to learn logical patterns from time-series data to aid our understanding of the system under study.
Biography: Jyotirmoy Deshmukh is a Principal Research Engineer at Toyota Technical Center in Gardena, California. His research interests are in requirement engineering, temporal logic, formal testing, verification, automatic synthesis and repair of systems, with special focus on cyberphysical system models. Previously, Jyotirmoy got his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, on the topic of verification of sequential and concurrent software libraries using techniques such as the theory of tree automata and static program analysis. After his Ph.D., he worked as a post-doctoral researcher as part of the Computing Innovation Fellows program at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research interest is in techniques for improving reliability of embedded control software used in cyber-physical systems.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Nicholas Baker, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Tue, Nov 15, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nicholas Baker, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminarWebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminar
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
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CS Colloquium and RASC Seminar: Subramanian Ramamoorthy (University of Edinburgh) -Representations and Models for Collaboratively Intelligent Robots
Tue, Nov 15, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Subramanian Ramamoorthy, University of Edinburgh
Talk Title: Representations and Models for Collaboratively Intelligent Robots
Series: RASC Seminar Series
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
We are motivated by the problem of building autonomous robots that are able to work collaboratively with other agents, such as human co-workers. One key attribute of such an autonomous system is the ability to make predictions about the actions and intentions of other agents in a dynamic environment - both to interpret the activity context as it is being played out and to adapt actions in response to that contextual information.
Drawing on examples from robotic systems we have developed in my lab, including mobile robots that can navigate effectively in crowded spaces and humanoid robots that can cooperate in assembly tasks, I will present recent results addressing the questions of how to efficiently capture the hierarchical nature of activities, and how to rapidly estimate latent factors, such as hidden goals and intent.
Firstly, I will describe a procedure for topological trajectory classification, using the concept of persistent homology, which enables unsupervised extraction of certain kinds of relational concepts in motion data. One use of this representation is in devising a multi-scale version of Bayesian recursive estimation, which is a step towards reliably grounding human instructions in the realized activity.
Finally, I will describe work with a human-robot interface based on the combined use of vision and mobile 3D eye tracking as a signal for inference about fixation programs. Formulating this in terms of a probabilistic generative model, we estimate fixation locations within a 3D scene, which in turn allows us to associate symbols in a higher level plan with the actual appearance of novel objects that the symbols refer to.
Biography: Dr. Subramanian Ramamoorthy is a Reader (Associate Professor) in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, where he has been on the faculty since 2007. He is a Coordinator of the EPSRC Robotarium Research Facility in the School of Informatics, and Executive Committee Member for Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007. He is an elected Member of the Young Academy of Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held Visiting Professor positions at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University and at the University of Rome "La Sapienza".
His research focus has been on robot learning and decision-making under uncertainty, with emphasis on problems involving human-robot and multi-robot collaborative activities. These problems are solved using a combination machine learning techniques with emphasis on issues of transfer, online and reinforcement learning as well as new representations and analysis techniques based on geometric/topological abstractions.
His work has been recognised by nominations for Best Paper Awards at major international conferences - ICRA 2008, IROS 2010, ICDL 2012 and EACL 2014. He serves in editorial and programme committee roles for conferences and journals in the areas of AI and Robotics. He leads Team Edinferno, the first UK entry in the Standard Platform League at the RoboCup International Competition. This work has received media coverage, including by BBC News and The Telegraph, and has resulted in many public engagement activities, such as at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, Edinburgh International Science festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Before joining the School of Informatics, he was a Staff Engineer with National Instruments Corp., where he contributed to five products in the areas of motion control, computer vision and dynamic simulation. This work resulted in seven US patents and numerous industry awards for product innovation.
Host: Gaurav Sukhatme
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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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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AI SEMINAR
Fri, Nov 18, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pablo Barberá, School of International Relations at USC
Talk Title: Less is more? How demographic sample weights can improve public opinion estimates based on Twitter data
Abstract: Twitter data is widely acknowledged to hold great promise for the study of political behavior and public opinion. However, a key limitation in previous studies is the lack of information about the sociodemographic characteristics of individual users, which raises concerns about the validity of inferences based on this source of data. This paper addresses this challenge by employing supervised machine learning methods to estimate the age, gender, race, party affiliation, propensity to vote, and income of any Twitter user in the U.S. The training dataset for these classifiers was obtained by matching a large dataset of 1 billion geolocated Twitter messages with voting registration records and estimates of home values across 15 different states, resulting in a sample of nearly 250,000 Twitter users whose sociodemographic traits are known. To illustrate the value of this approach, I offer three applications that use information about the predicted demographic composition of a random sample of 500,000 U.S. Twitter users. First, I explore how attention to politics varies across demographics groups. Then, I apply multilevel regression and postratification methods to recover valid estimate of presidential and candidate approval that can serve as early indicators of public opinion changes and thus complement traditional surveys. Finally, I demonstrate the value of Twitter data to study questions that may suffer from social desirability bias.
Biography: Pablo Barberá joined the School of International Relations at USC as an Assistant Professor in 2016, after receiving his PhD in political science from New York University and spending a year as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Data Science in New York University. His research interests include computational methods in the social sciences, automated text analysis, and social network analysis. He applies these methods to the study of social media and politics, comparative electoral behavior and collective action, and political representation. His work has been published in Political Analysis, PLOS ONE, Psychological Science, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Social Media + Society, and Social Science Computer Review. His current research agenda focuses on the role of social media platforms in the growth of social protests, the measurement of public opinion and political behavior using digital trace data, and how exposure to political violence and governments' counter-messages on social media affects ideological extremism and support for terrorist groups.
Host: Emilio Ferrara
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th floor large conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
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CS Colloquium and CAIS Seminar: Nicole Immorlica (Microsoft Research) - Maximizing the Social Good: Markets without Money
Fri, Nov 18, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nicole Immorlica, Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Maximizing the Social Good: Markets without Money
Series: Center for AI in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
To create a truly sustainable world, we need to both generate ample amounts of resources and allocate them appropriately to those that value them highly. In traditional economics, these goals are achieved using money. People are paid to produce valuable resources. Resources are sold at an appropriately high price, guaranteeing that the buyers had high value for them. However, in many settings of particular social significance, monetary transactions are infeasible. Sometimes this is because society has deemed it immoral to sell certain things, like seats at public schools or organs for transplantation. Other times it is because of technological constraints, like when the environment is electronic and there are no banks linked to user accounts.
In this talk, we will discuss two alternatives to money -- risk and social status -- and apply them to school choice and user-generated content websites. Risk is useful to help determine a person's value for a resource: the more someone is willing to risk for something, the more they value it. Using this insight, we propose an algorithm to allocate seats at public schools to students who value them the most. Social status is useful to motivate people to contribute to a public project. Using this insight, we design badges and leaderboards to maximize contributions to user-generated content websites like citizen science projects, question-and-answering sites, or review sites.
Host: CS Department
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Fri, Nov 18, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Elliot Botvinick, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery, Beckman Laser Institute, Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology, University of California, Irvine
Talk Title: Feeling Pericellular Mechanical Heterogeneities
Series: Distinguished Speaker Series, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering
Abstract: While there is strong evidence for roles of bulk stromal stiffness in cell regulation, roles for the pericellular mechanical microenvironment are less clear, in large part due to the difficulty of measurement. My group implements automated Active Microrheology (aAMR), an optical tweezers technology, to probe extracellular stiffness and map it in the volume surrounding cells. Our aAMR applies sinusoidal optical forces onto microbeads embedded within natural extracellular matrices (ECMs), including those comprised of fibrin and type 1 collagen. As in the case of passive microrheology, aAMR reports the complex material response function of the ECM just surrounding each microbead. Different from passive methods, aAMR is valid for systems not in thermal equilibrium, as is typical for regions of the ECM near to contractile cells. Our aAMR microscope can probe many beads surrounding each cell to map the mechanical landscape, allowing us to seek correlations between local stiffness distributions and cell properties such as contractility, signaling, and differentiation. I will present specific examples for which the distribution of pericellular stiffness correlates with cell phenotype including MT1-MMP deficient primary mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cell branching morphogenesis. Lastly, I will touch on the implications of the remarkably steep local gradients in stiffness, particularly how it relates to the challenges of testing mechanical hypothesis in 3D hydrogel systems.
Host: Megan McCain, PhD
More Information: botvinick_flyer_11_18_2016.pdf
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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NL Seminar-Incremental spoken dialogue system for reference resolution in images
Fri, Nov 18, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ramesh R Manuvinakurike , USC/ICT
Talk Title: Incremental spoken dialogue system for reference resolution in images
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: In this talk, I will be speaking about our ongoing effort in the development of Eve, state-of-the-art incremental reference resolution in images based spoken dialogue agent. Incrementality is central to developing a naturally conversing spoken dialogue systems. Incrementality makes the conversations more natural and efficient compared to non-incremental alternatives. The performance of the Eve was found to be comparable to human performance and she conveniently outperforms alternative non-incremental architectures. However, building such a system is not trivial. It needs high-performance architectures and dialogue components (ASR, dialogue policies, language understanding etc.). I will also speak about future plans for enhancing Eve's capability. I also take a slight deviation and explore a different word level natural language understanding model for reference resolution in images in a dialogue setting.
Biography: Ramesh Manuvinakurike is a Ph.D. student at USC Institute for Creative Technologies working with Prof. David DeVault and Prof. Kallirroi Georgila. He is interested in developing conversational systems and has developed various such systems. His work with his colleagues on agent Eve won 'Best paper' award at Sigdial 2015.
Host: Xing Shi and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Nov 21, 2016 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Jamieson, PhD, USC Faculty Regulatory Science
Talk Title: International Regulation
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 21, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jim Kapinski, Senior Principal Engineer, Toyota Technical Center
Talk Title: Advanced Techniques for Test and Verification of Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract: Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are used in safety critical applications such as automotive, aerospace, and medical devices, and so it is vital that these systems work correctly. Complex CPSs are developed and evaluated using approaches from the fields of software and control design. This talk contrasts the software and control design perspectives in the context of CPS and provides background on the roots of the model-based development (MBD) design paradigm, which is often used to develop CPSs. The talk also provides an overview of modern techniques used to test industrial CPSs and describes advanced approaches to verification for these systems.
One advanced approach to verifying CPSs uses numerical simulations to discover Lyapunov functions. Lyapunov functions for continuous dynamical systems are analogous to ranking functions for software systems; they can be used to certify convergence and also to obtain performance bounds on behaviors, but they are difficult to discover. Our technique uses simulation traces to discover Lyapunov functions for nonlinear and hybrid dynamical systems. In cases where Lyapunov functions cannot be obtained, Lyapunov-like functions are used to automatically identify non-convergent behaviors that demonstrate incorrect system behaviors. The technique can be used to either verify stability and obtain performance bounds for CPS designs or to automatically provide examples of incorrect system behavior.
Biography: Jim Kapinski is a Senior Principal Engineer at the Toyota Technical Center. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 and was a postdoctoral researcher at CMU from 2007 to 2008. He went on to found and lead Fixed-Point Consulting, serving clients in the defense, aerospace, and automotive industries. He has been with Toyota since 2012. His work at Toyota focuses on advanced research into verification techniques for embedded software for powertrain control systems. Jim's research interests include verification techniques for embedded control system designs and analysis of hybrid dynamical systems.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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BME Special Seminar
Tue, Nov 22, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Heinz U. Lemke, PhD , Technical University of Berlin, Germany; Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery University of Leipzig, Germany; International Foundation of CARS, Kuessaberg, Germa
Talk Title: Surgical PACS/TIMMS and Data Modeling
Series: Biomedical Engineering Special Seminar
Host: Brent Liu, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Gurol Suel, University of California, San Diego
Tue, Nov 22, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gurol Suel, University of California, San Diego
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminarWebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminar
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
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Epstein Institute Seminar
Tue, Nov 22, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Steven Low, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Optimal Power Flow: Oline Algorithm & Fast Dynamics
Host: Dr. Jong-shi Pang
More Information: November 22, 2016_Low.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Michele ISE
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Mon, Nov 28, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Luca Foschini , Co-founder and Chief Data Scientist, Evidation Health
Talk Title: Learn Health (from Your Wrist)
Abstract: Wearable technologies have seen a tremendous development in recent years: step and calorie counters have long made their way to our phones and watches, and new consumer-grade sensors can now measure a breadth of physiological functions that until recently could only be found in the monitoring equipment of intensive care units. However, despite the undisputed short-term benefits due to the user increased awareness, quantifying the potential value of wearable technologies in improving longer-term health outcomes remains an open question. In this talk we will present evidence that activity tracking data contains a wealth of information that is predictive of metrics directly related to health outcomes, ranging from medication adherence to lifestyle. To this end, we will show how machine learning tools need to be adapted to take full advantage of densely sampled, multi-variate time series of tracker data. Finally, we will reflect on how the predictive power of wearable data can be harnessed to inform behavior change interventions, and how expertise in computer science, clinical medicine, and behavioral psychology will have to join forces to overcome obstacles in adoption, user engagement, and regulations.
Biography: As Co-founder and Chief Data Scientist at Evidation Health, Luca Foschini PhD is responsible for data analytics, computing, research and development. Dr. Foschini has driven research collaborations with machine learning experts at MIT, behavioral economics departments at Harvard Business School and the Wharton School. Prior to his role at Evidation, Dr. Foschini held research positions in industry and academic institutions, including Ask.com, Google, ETH Zurich, and UC Santa Barbara. He has published numerous papers and co-authored several patents on efficient algorithms for partitioning and detecting anomalies in massive networks.Dr. Foschini is an alumnus of the Sant'Anna School of Pisa, Italy.
Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Michael Elowitz, California Institute of Technology
Tue, Nov 29, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Elowitz, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Host: USC Stem Cell
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminarWebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/StemCellSeminar
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems
Tue, Nov 29, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Partha Pratim Pande, Professor, Washington State University
Talk Title: Bringing Cores Closer Together: The Wireless Revolution in On-Chip Communication
Abstract: The continuing progress and integration levels in silicon technologies make complete end-user systems on a single chip possible. This massive level of integration makes modern manycore chips all pervasive in domains ranging from weather forecasting, astronomical data analysis, and biological applications to consumer electronics and smart phones. Network-on-Chips (NoCs) have emerged as communication backbones to enable a high degree of integration in manycore platforms. Despite their advantages, an important performance limitation in traditional NoCs arises from planar metal interconnect-based multi-hop communications, wherein the data transfer between far-apart blocks causes high latency and power consumption. The latency, power consumption, and interconnect routing problems of NoCs can be simultaneously addressed by replacing multi-hop wired paths with high-bandwidth single-hop long-range wireless links. In this talk, we will present design of the millimeter (mm)-wave wireless NoC architectures. We will present detailed performance evaluation and necessary design trade-offs for the small-world network-enabled wireless NoCs with respect to their conventional wireline counterparts in presence of both conventional CMP and emerging big data workloads. We will discuss how Machine Learning can be exploited to design energy efficient Wireless NoC architectures. We will finish this presentation by discussing how the wireless NoC paradigm can enable realization of datacenter-on-chip using heterogeneous processing cores.
Biography: Partha Pratim Pande is a Professor and holder of the Boeing Centennial Chair in computer engineering at the school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Washington State University, Pullman, USA. His current research interests are novel interconnect architectures for manycore chips, on-chip wireless communication networks, and hardware accelerators for biocomputing. Dr. Pande currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of IEEE Transactions on Multi-Scale Computing Systems (TMSCS) and Associate Editor-in-Chief (A-EIC) of IEEE Design and Test (D&T). He is on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on VLSI (TVLSI), ACM Journal of Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems (JETC). He was the technical program committee chair of IEEE/ACM Network-on-Chip Symposium 2015. He also serves in the program committee of many reputed international conferences. He has won the NSF CAREER award in 2009. He is the winner of the Anjan Bose outstanding researcher award from the college of engineering, Washington State University in 2013.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Epstein Institute Seminar
Tue, Nov 29, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Benjamin F. Hobbs, John Hopkins University
Talk Title: How Can We Use Optimization to Design Electric Power Markets to Support Socially Optimal Decisions
Host: Dr. Jong-shi Pang
More Information: November 29, 2016_Hobbs.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Michele ISE
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CS Colloquium: Richard Samworth (University of Cambridge) - High-dimensional changepoint estimation via sparse projection
Tue, Nov 29, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Richard Samworth, University of Cambridge
Talk Title: High-dimensional changepoint estimation via sparse projection
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.
Changepoints are a very common feature of Big Data that arrive in the form of a data stream. We study high-dimensional time series in which, at certain time points, the mean structure changes in a sparse subset of the coordinates. The challenge is to borrow strength across the coordinates in order to detect smaller changes than could be observed in any individual component series. We propose a two-stage procedure called 'inspect' for estimation of the changepoints: first, we argue that a good projection direction can be obtained as the leading left singular vector of the matrix that solves a convex optimisation problem derived from the CUSUM transformation of the time series. We then apply an existing univariate changepoint detection algorithm to the projected series. Our theory provides strong guarantees on both the number of estimated changepoints and the rates of convergence of their locations, and our numerical studies validate its highly competitive empirical performance for a wide range of data generating mechanisms.
Biography: I am a Professor of Statistics in the Statistical Laboratory, a sub-department of the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. This is part of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. I am also a Teaching Fellow at St John's College, and run the Statistics Clinic for members of the university.
I currently hold a five-year EPSRC Early Career Fellowship, which began on 1 December 2012. I am also an Alan Turing Institute Faculty Fellow.
Host: Yan Liu
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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MHI CommNetS Seminar
Wed, Nov 30, 2016 @ 02:00 AM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mohammad Rasouli, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Capacity and Energy Markets for Stable Renewable Economy
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: Existing supportive mechanisms for investment on renewable energies are not sustainable with higher penetration level of renewables. Rather, these mechanism should be replaced by market mechanisms. On the other hand, spot markets in place for conventional energies already suffer from underinvestment problem and there is an ongoing debate on the use of capacity markets for motivating sufficient investment.
In this talk we discuss the economical origins of underinvestment in conventional economies, and how renewables will change the situation. We propose a block investment market mechanism with forward moving approach that has the following features. (F1) The expansion and production allocations corresponding to the unique Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the game induced by the mechanism are the same as those that maximize the sum of utilities of the producers and the demand. (F2) It is budget balanced. (F3) It is individually rational. (F4) It is price efficient that is, the price for electricity at equilibrium is equal to the marginal utility of the demand and to the marginal cost of production by producers with free capacity.
Biography: Mohammad Rasouli is a PhD student in EECS: Systems joint with MSc in Economics at University of Michigan. He has received his Bachelor in EE from Sharif University of Technology. He uses stochastic control, game theory and mechanism design to study emerging cyber-physical systems including energy systems and cyber-security.
Host: Prof. Ashutosh Nayyar
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Wed, Nov 30, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mari Winkler, Ph.D., University of Washington
Talk Title: Do More in Less: Intensifying Wastewater Treatment Plants with Aerobic Granular Sludge Technology
Abstract: See Attachment
More Information: Environmental Engineering Seminar.docx
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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MHI/EE-Electrophysics Seminar, Wednesday, November 30th at 2PM in EEB 132
Wed, Nov 30, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: David Allstot, University of California at Berkeley
Talk Title: Switched-Capacitor Circuits Research in Wireless Networks and Ultra-low-power Sensor Interfaces
Abstract: Emerging wireless standards aggregate information by selecting combinations of contiguous or non-contiguous channels, thereby enabling wider transmission bandwidths, and hence, higher data rates. Frequency-interleaved analog-to-digital conversion (FI-ADC) is an attractive emerging technique for carrier aggregation receivers because it facilitates an efficient way to dynamically vary the receiver bandwidth in order to address the many possible channel combinations. Compared to their time-interleaved counterparts, the specifications of the samplers in each parallel channel in FI-ADCs are significantly relaxed, thereby resulting in lower overall power consumption in the receiver. This work extends the FI-ADC idea to the quadrature frequency-interleaved oversampled data converter (QFI-ADC) to achieve greater aggregate data rates. Previously, digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and other inter-channel mismatches have limited the performance of QFI-ADCs. We propose a low-complexity element rotation algorithm (ERA) to mitigate DAC mismatches. The ERA is synthesized from the corresponding mismatch transfer function using a rigorous mathematical procedure which is shown to be generally applicable to low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and quadrature ERA's. Simulations confirm that the resulting low-complexity quadrature ERAs have advantages over previously proposed approaches in terms of both performance and hardware complexity. An additional gain calibration technique alleviates image folding due to mismatches between the quadrature DAC elements, which yields higher SNDR.
The original switched-capacitor power amplifier is a polar power amplifier, amplifying a non-constant envelope modulation by linear combination of the amplitude modulation and phase modulation. It has since been extended to operate across multiple supply domains and to operate using quadrature and multiphase signals. The proposed research will be important to extend the SCPA architecture for future applications. For instance, the SCPA can be used as an enabling technology for massive MIMO, where moderate power, highly efficient, versatile transmitter cores with moderate die area are needed. In massive MIMO, hundreds of transmitter chains drive hundreds of antenna elements to form communications beams that enhance data service to multiple individual users. In addition to massive MIMO, the SCPA offers high efficiency for low-power, high order modulation schemes that are being deployed for wireless sensor systems prevalent in the internet of things. Additionally the SCPA can offer enhanced out-of-band rejection by implementing digital filtering directly in the RF front-end circuitry of a transmitter. This can be by means of weighted summation of an array of small SCPAs. Finally the frequency range of the SCPA can be extended.
Finally, research on the use of CMOS ring amplifier circuits in bio-medical and other ultra-low-power sensor networks is discussed. An analog compressed sensing front-end is used to motivate further investigations.
Biography: David J. Allstot received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Univ. of Portland, Oregon State Univ., and the Univ. of California, Berkeley.
He has held several industrial and academic positions. He was the Boeing-Egtvedt Chair Professor of Engineering at the Univ. of Washington from 1999 to 2012 and Chair of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering from 2004 to 2007. In 2012 he was a Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and from 2013 to 2016, he held a three-year appointment as the MacKay Professor in Residence in the EECS Dept. at UC Berkeley.
Dr. Allstot has advised about 65 M.S. and 40 Ph.D. graduates, published more than 300 papers, and received several awards for outstanding teaching and research including the 1980 IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award, 1995 and 2010 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Darlington Award, 1998 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Beatrice Winner Award, 2004 IEEE CASS Charles A. Desoer Technical Achievement Award, 2005 Semiconductor Research Corp. Aristotle Award, 2008 Semiconductor Industries Assoc. University Research Award, 2011 IEEE CASS Mac Van Valkenburg Award, and 2015 IEEE Trans. on Biomedical Circuits and Systems Best Paper Award. He has been very active in service to the IEEE Circuits and Systems and Solid-State Circuits Societies throughout his career.
Host: MHI/EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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MHI CommNetS Seminar
Wed, Nov 30, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mohammad Rasouli, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Capacity and Energy Markets for Stable Renewable Economy
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: Existing supportive mechanisms for investment on renewable energies are not sustainable with higher penetration level of renewables. Rather, these mechanism should be replaced by market mechanisms. On the other hand, spot markets in place for conventional energies already suffer from underinvestment problem and there is an ongoing debate on the use of capacity markets for motivating sufficient investment.
In this talk we discuss the economical origins of underinvestment in conventional economies, and how renewables will change the situation. We propose a block investment market mechanism with forward moving approach that has the following features. (F1) The expansion and production allocations corresponding to the unique Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the game induced by the mechanism are the same as those that maximize the sum of utilities of the producers and the demand. (F2) It is budget balanced. (F3) It is individually rational. (F4) It is price efï¬cient that is, the price for electricity at equilibrium is equal to the marginal utility of the demand and to the marginal cost of production by producers with free capacity.
Biography: Mohammad Rasouli is a PhD student in EECS: Systems joint with MSc in Economics at University of Michigan. He has received his Bachelor in EE from Sharif University of Technology. He uses stochastic control, game theory and mechanism design to study emerging cyber-physical systems including energy systems and cyber-security.
Host: Prof. Ashutosh Nayyar
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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CS Colloquium: Grace Hui Yang (Georgetown University) - Statistical Modeling of Information Seeking
Wed, Nov 30, 2016 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Grace Hui Yang , Georgetown University
Talk Title: Statistical Modeling of Information Seeking
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Many modern IR systems and data exhibit new characteristics which are largely ignored by conventional techniques. What is missing is an ability for the model to change over time and be responsive to stimulus. Documents, relevance, users and tasks all exhibit dynamic behavior that is captured in big data sets (typically collected over long time spans) and models need to respond to these changes. This talk provides an up-to-date introduction to statistical modeling of information seeking. In particular, I will talk about how we model information seeking as a partially observable Markov decision process and achieve high accuracy in the TREC Session Tracks. I will also talk about evaluation in dynamic information retrieval modeling and the TREC Dynamic Domain Track.
Biography: Grace Hui Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Georgetown University. Grace obtained her Ph.D. from the Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University in 2011. Grace's current research interests include dynamic search, search engine evaluation, privacy-preserving information retrieval, and information organization. Prior to this, she conducted research on question answering, ontology construction, near-duplicate detection, multimedia information retrieval and opinion and sentiment detection. Grace is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award. Grace co-chaired the SIGIR 2013-2014 Doctoral Consortium, SIGIR 2017 Workshop, and WSDM 2017 Workshop. She served as an area chair for SIGIR 2014-2017 and ACL 2016. Grace also co-organized the TREC Dynamic Domain Track since 2015.
Host: Cyrus Shahabi
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100C
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
