Select a calendar:
Filter December Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for December 05, 2007
-
SWE Date Auction - call for auctionees!!
Wed, Dec 05, 2007
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
SWE Date Auction...it's coming!! Get ready for the 4th Annual SWE Date Auction! Last year, we auctioned off 11 beautiful ladies and 12 handsome gentlemen, with some bids exceeding $150! All proceeds go to charity. Thursday, February 21, 2008
5:00pm - 8:00pm
Engineering Quad Applications to be an auctionee are now being accepted. If you're hot, smart, and an engineer, make sure you sign up! Apply TODAY: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~sweusc/auction/. All applications must be submitted by Wednesday, December 5th at 11:59:59 PM. Also, if you are interested in directing Date Auction videos, please email swedateauction@gmail.com by Friday, December 7th at 11:59:59PM. Filming will take place in mid-January.Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
-
Meet USC (AM session)
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid.Reservations are required for Meet USC. Please visit http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/visit/events/meet_usc/ to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Prospective Freshmen and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
Contact: Viterbi Admission
-
List-Decoding of Error-Correcting Codes with Applications to Compressed Sensing
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Farzad Parvaresh, Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of TechnologyABSTRACT: We consider the problem of designing codes and decoding algorithms for the adversarial channel. We show that the ultimate error-correction radius of 1 - R, where R is the rate of the code, can be achieved constructively with polynomial-time decoding, in the list-decoding sense.Our codes and list-decoders are based on two key ideas. The first is the transition from bivariate polynomial interpolation, pioneered by Sudan and Guruswami-Sudan, to multivariate interpolation decoding. The second idea is to part ways with Reed-Solomon codes, for which numerous prior attempts at breaking the rate barrier in the worst-case were unsuccessful. Rather than devising a better list-decoder for Reed-Solomon codes, we devise better codes. In our codes, instead of evaluating certain functions at rational points of a curve, we evaluate the rational points themselves, viewed as pairs of polynomials over a subfield, at certain elements of the subfield. This construction leads to polynomial-time error-correction up to the radius of 1 - O(R log(1/R)). Utilizing the folding technique of Guruswami and Rudra one can improve the decoding bound up to 1 - R - \epsilon, for any positive \epsilon.Finally, we borrow ideas from the list-decoding of Reed-Solomon codes to improve the state of the art in the area of compressed sensing. We show that a deterministic Fourier measurement of the signal with a decoding algorithm due to Coppersmith and Sudan can reach the ultimate threshold of sparsity to number-of-measurements for block sparse signals in polynomial time. We will also point out connections of this to DNA microarrays.BIO: Farzad Parvaresh was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1978.He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2001, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering form the University of California, San Diego, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. He is currently a post doctoral scholar at the Center for Mathematics of Information, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. His research interests include error-correcting codes, algebraic decoding algorithms, information theory, networks, and fun math problems. Dr. Parvaresh was a recipient of the best paper award from the 46th Annual IEEE symposium on foundations of computer science (FOCS'05).Host: Prof. Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
-
Meet USC (PM session)
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid.Reservations are required for Meet USC. Please visit http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/visit/events/meet_usc/ to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Prospective Freshmen and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
Contact: Viterbi Admission
-
Emotions in Human-Agent Interactions
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:40 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
ISE 650 SEMINAR - DANIEL J. EPSTEIN DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING"Emotions in Human-Agent Interactions"Dr. Jonathan GratchInstitute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern CaliforniaDecember 5, 2007 (Wednesday) 3:30~4:40 pm at KAP158.The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in the role emotion plays in human cognition and social interaction. Recent findings in psychology and neuroscience have emphasized emotion's distinct and complementary role in human cognition when contrasted with the rational conceptions of human thought such as decision theory, game theory and logic. Rather than viewing emotion as a distortion of such rational systems, contemporary research emphasizes emotion's functional role and has worked out a number of the mechanisms through which emotion helps an organism adapt to its physical and social environment. Within computer science, there is growing interest in exploiting these findings to expand classical rational models of intelligent behavior. In this talk, I will review current findings on the intrapersonal and interpersonal function of emotion and its potential role in enhancing human-computer interaction. I will then discuss our attempts to model these functions within the context of live-like interactive characters that can engage in socio-emotional interactions with human users for training and education. -------------------------Dr. Jonathan Gratch (http://www.ict.usc.edu/~gratch) is the Associate Director for Virtual Humans Research at ICT and a research associate professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Urban-Champaign in 1995 with a focus on machine learning, planning and cognitive science. His research addresses the creation of virtual humans (artificially intelligent agents embodied in a human-like graphical body) and cognitive modeling. He studies the relationship between cognition and emotion, the cognitive processes underlying emotional responses, and the influence of emotion on decision making and physical behavior. He has worked on a number of applications of virtual agents, including considerable experience in the research and development of automated and semi-automated agents in training. Dr. Gratch is the Vice President of the HUMAINE Association for Emotion and Human-Computer Interaction, a member of the editorial board of the journal Emotion Review, and the author of over 100 technical articles.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 158
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
-
Overall Electromagnetic Properties of Multifunctional Composites
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Alireza V. Amirkhizi Postdoctoral FellowCenter of Excellence for Advanced Materials Department of Mechanical and Aerospace EngineeringUniversity of California at San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093 Abstract:Composite materials are used for their excellent structural performance. Load-bearing properties are traditionally the only aspects for which a composite structure is designed. Recent technological advances have made it possible to reach beyond this limited view. Inspired by biological systems, we seek to develop engineering materials that exhibit multiple functionalities in addition to providing structural integrity. I will present my research on embedding periodic arrays of scattering elements within composites to modify and tune their overall electromagnetic properties. A number of techniques for numerical and analytical modeling of the periodic media are discussed. Based on these methods we have designed and fabricated composites with tuned electromagnetic properties. Examples include fiber-reinforced polymer composites with embedded arrays of straight wires or coils. In both cases, the overall dielectric constant of the medium is reduced and can even be rendered negative within microwave frequencies. The coil medium can exhibit chiral response. Solutions for eliminating this behavior as well as a method for calculation of the bianisotropic material parameters are presented. One can achieve similar modification of the overall properties at higher frequencies by reducing the length scale. For example, we demonstrated that a polymer film with embedded nano-strips of gold can demonstrate negative dielectric constant in infrared regime. An example of a structural composite is fabricated and tested for which the magnetic permeability is altered and even turned negative. Finally, a general method for homogenization of the electromagnetic properties of periodic media based on the microstructure is presented.
Location: Stauffer Science Lecture Hall, Rm 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
-
SWE 4th General Meeting: Gingerbread House Making
Wed, Dec 05, 2007 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Join SWE for some festive and relaxing fun as we decorate gingerbread houses! First 50 attendees gets a SWEet Finals Goodie Bag to help you stay up all those nights!
Location: Topping Student Center Basement (Tommy's Place)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
