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Events for November 27, 2012
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CSCI 102 Supplemental Instruction SessionTue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 07:00 AM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Supplemental Instruction session for students enrolled in CSCI 102.
SI offers an informal atmosphere where you and your classmates can explore important concepts, review class notes, discuss assignments, work on practice problems, and go over relevant study skills.
SI is a great study option and we encourage all students to make SI part of their study habits! Come for 30 minutes or the whole 2 hours.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 140
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Academic Resource Center
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Classification of Speech Under Cognitive Load
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Julien Epps, The University of New South Wales, Sydney,School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications
Talk Title: Classification of Speech Under Cognitive Load
Abstract: The estimation of a userâs cognitive load has traditionally involved manual and/or post-hoc approaches such as subjective self-rating, performance measures and reaction time. Recently there has been a movement to automate cognitive load estimation, towards indicators that are sensitive to real time fluctuations in mental load during tasks. Speech is a natural signal to consider, being relatively free of the intrusiveness, inconvenience or privacy concerns associated with other signals such as video, EEG or GSR. Little is known about the effects of cognitive load on speech, however. In this presentation, results from recent investigations into vocal source-related and vocal tract-related parameters will be discussed, and promising system configurations for cognitive load classification will be presented. Finally, a brief overview of related current work on mental state recognition from speech and other methods for cognitive load estimation will be given.
Biography: Julien Epps is a Senior Lecturer with The University of New South Wales School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. He has a joint position as a Senior Researcher with National ICT Australia (a government research lab), as part of a longer-term project investigating real time, non-intrusive cognitive load measurement using behavioural and physiological signals. In recent years he has worked mainly on the recognition of emotion, depression and cognitive load from speech and on speaker recognition. For example, as part of a funded project based at UNSW, he is investigating methods for dealing with speaker and phonetic variability in the emotion recognition problem.
Host: Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: RTH 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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Medical Imaging Seminar Series
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 01:45 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Rohan Dharmakumar, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Talk Title: "Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent MRI for Ischemic Heart Disease: Current State-of-the-Art"
Abstract: Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in the Western world. It is estimated that nearly 7 million people are living with coronary artery disease (CAD) in the United States and about half a million people die from it each year. The most common form of CAD leads to narrowing of the coronary arteries (stenosis) resulting in reduced blood flow and oxygen supplied to the heart muscle. Accurate early detection of flow deficits may permit interventional revascularization procedures (pharmacological intervention, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, and/or bypass surgery) to re-establish flow to the hypo-perfused regions. The absence of revascularization increases the risk of sudden cardiac death.
Accurate non-invasive methods for detecting coronary artery disease are necessary to determine which patients should undergo revascularization therapy. The gold standard for detecting coronary artery stenosis is x-ray angiography with iodinated contrast agent which is expensive, invasive, and does not provide information regarding the functional status of the myocardium, which is perhaps more important than morphological information in treating the disease.
In order to identify CAD on the basis of functional status of the myocardium, significant research efforts have been devoted to the development of noninvasive methods, but the establishment of such methods remains challenging. Current approaches include computed positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE). PET is a promising method for detecting regional myocardial blood flow differences. However, PET studies are limited by low spatial resolution, limited availability, and administration of ionizing radiation. SPECT imaging is the technique most widely used for detecting both metabolic activity and perfusion. However, like PET, SPECT techniques are also limited by low spatial resolution and/or potentially harmful ionizing radiation.
First-pass MRI with gadolinium conjugates has been used for assessing perfusion changes due to coronary artery disease. First-pass methods rely on the detection of changes in myocardial perfusion reserve due to coronary artery disease and thus typically require the use of pharmacological stress agents, such as adenosine or dipyridamole. Unfortunately, since these agents impart physical discomfort in patients, the infusion time of the agent is limited to only six minutes. This method is evaluated most commonly using rapid imaging techniques with multi-slice capabilities. While this approach can identify regions of perfusion deficits, the method is limited by inadequate myocardial coverage and sub-optimal temporal and spatial resolution because of the need to capture the first passage of the contrast media at relatively high temporal resolution (1 frame/heartbeat). These limitations can decrease the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity.
An alternate method for identifying perfusion deficits relies on endogenous contrast mechanism mediated by red blood cells. It is known that magnetic susceptibility of red blood cells is determined by the oxygen saturation (%O2) of the hemoglobin. Differential %O2 of hemoglobin molecules affects the local magnetic field variations in the intra- and the extra-vascular spaces. The changes in field inhomogeneities, due to changes in %O2, are realized as MR signal changes. This is known as blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) MRI and has enabled the detection of regional activation patterns in the brain. The potential benefits of BOLD MRI for detecting global or regional myocardial ischemia due to coronary artery disease were demonstrated over two decades ago. In this talk, I will chronicle the development of myocardial BOLD MRI for characterization of ischemic heart disease over the past decades.
Biography: Dr. Rohan Dharmakumar obtained his BSc in Theoretical Physiology and Physics, MSc in Mathematics and PhD in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Subsequently he went onto complete a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiac MRI and was appointed as Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at Depts of Biomedical Sciences, Imaging, and Heart Institute and the Associate Director of Biomedical Imaging Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. At Cedars he heads a lab focused on translational cardiac imaging with the specific goal of extending our current understanding of ischemic heart disease using MRI. His research efforts are continually funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH and American Heart Association.
Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jay Crosson, Ph.D., Senior Health Researcher, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey
Talk Title: "Implementation and Use of Health Information Technologies in Primary Care Practice Change"
Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series
Abstract: Implementation and use of electronic health records (EHR) and electronic prescribing (e-Rx) have been widely recommended to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care delivery in primary care practices. However, recent studies have documented that EHRs in use in ambulatory care have a wide range of available features and that usage of the most advanced features, even among long-time users, is highly varied. Through a series of studies, I have documented challenges faced by clinicians using these technologies including difficulty adjusting work processes for effective EHR use, financial and technical barriers, and the uneven use of key advanced features. This research has contributed evidence that typical EHR usage has not, to date, led to expected improvements in care quality and has identified the need for purposeful redesign of primary care work processes to better integrate use of health information technologies into care delivery. This presentation will focus on four specific areas relating to use of health information technology in primary care practice: 1) why EHR use did not lead to improved diabetes care in a sample of community practices, 2) implementation difficulties in an e-prescribing implementation project, 3) difficulties in measuring EHR use and what this suggests about our knowledge of HIT use in primary care, 4) workarounds in primary care use of EHR technology. The discussion will focus on how these findings can inform primary care practice redesign efforts.
Biography: Jesse C. (Jay) Crosson is a Senior Health Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, New Jersey where he is currently working on several evaluations of federally-sponsored efforts to transform primary care and reform primary care payment models. Dr. Crossonâs research employs a variety of research methods to focus on the implementation and use of health information technologies in primary care settings and on how use of these technologies affects the quality of chronic illness care. He recently received funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases for a five-year study to evaluate diabetes registry implementation efforts in primary care practices. Dr. Crosson holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and currently serves on the Committee on Advancing the Science of Family Medicine, Health Information Technology Committee and as study chairman of the Translating Research into Action for Diabetes Legacy Study. Findings from his research have been published in over 50 peer reviewed journal articles and in several reports to Congress and federal agencies.
More Information: Seminar-Crosson.doc
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Room 309
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium: George Porter: Towards Balanced, Data-intensive Scalable Computing
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: George Porter, UC San Diego
Talk Title: Towards Balanced, Data-intensive Scalable Computing
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: While many interesting systems are able to scale linearly with additional servers, per-server performance can lag behind per-server capacity by more than an order of magnitude. In this talk, we will present Themis, a runtime supporting highly-efficient data-intensive computing. As an initial challenge application for this runtime, we built TritonSort, a highly efficient, scalable sorting system. It is designed to process large datasets with very high throughput (and has been evaluated against as much as 100 TB of input data spread across 832 disks in 52 nodes at a rate of 0.938 TB/min). It is also the winner of the 100TB "Indy" and "Daytona"
JouleSort benchmarks. In this talk, we will give an overview of the hardware and software architecture necessary to drive this level of efficiency. We then discuss how we have subsequetly generalized our system to support Map/Reduce programming. We believe the work holds a number of lessons for balanced system design and for scale-out architectures in general. Bridging the gap between high scalability and high performance will enable either significantly cheaper systems that are able to do the same work, or provide the ability to address significantly larger problem sets with the same infrastructure.
Biography: George Porter is a Research Scientist in the Center for Networked Systems and a member of the Systems and Networking group at UC San Diego. He received his B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Host: Minlan Yu
Location: SSL 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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CED & VARC Study Night
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
All Viterbi undergrads are invited to this informal study night in the CED lounge. Tutors from the Viterbi Academic Resource Center and the Center for Engineering Diversity will be on hand to answer your questions and help you work through problems. Tutors can answer questions for most lower-division math and science classes. Bring your textbooks, assignments, and your engineering friends - plus we'll have pizza!
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 210
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Academic Resource Center
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CSCI 101 Supplemental Instruction Session
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Supplemental Instruction session for students enrolled in CSCI 101.
SI offers an informal atmosphere where you and your classmates can explore important concepts, review class notes, discuss assignments, work on practice problems, and go over relevant study skills.
SI is a great study option and we encourage all students to make SI part of their study habits! Come for 30 minutes or the whole 2 hours.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 144
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Academic Resource Center
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USC Energy Club Poster Competition
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 07:00 PM - 09:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
The Energy Club is hosting a poster competition where USC graduate students can showcase their research in the clean tech and energy arenas.
Location: Davidson Conference Center, Vineyard Room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: USC Energy Club
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ASME Super SolidWorks Month
Tue, Nov 27, 2012 @ 08:00 PM - 09:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
University Calendar
We will be hosting a series of Solidworks workshops in the month of November. Join us for our first event and strengthen your modeling skills while learning how to make a watch! This will be a great introduction and review for those of you interested in getting more comfortable with this software. Anyone, from incoming freshman to graduating senior or grad student, is invited to join us!
*Food provided*
You can use what you learned in these workshops for personal projects or our upcoming projects including the Human Powered Vehicle, Van De Graaf generator, and a Hovercraft!Location: Waite Phillips Hall Of Education (WPH) - B36
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
