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Events for the 2nd week of April
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CS Colloquium: Xuhai Orson Xu - How Do We Get There?: Toward Intelligent Behavior Intervention
Mon, Apr 08, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xuhai Orson Xu, MIT
Talk Title: How Do We Get There?: Toward Intelligent Behavior Intervention
Abstract: As the intelligence of everyday smart devices continues to evolve, they can already monitor basic health behaviors such as physical activities and heart rates. The vision of an intelligent behavior change intervention pipeline for health -- combining behavior modeling & interaction design -- seems to be within reach. How do we get there?In this talk, I will introduce a comprehensive intervention pipeline that bridges behavior science theory-driven designs and generalizable behavior models. I will also introduce my efforts on passive sensing datasets, human-centered algorithms, and a benchmark platform that drives the community toward more robust and deployable intervention systems for health and well-being. This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Xuhai "Orson" Xu is a postdoc at MIT EECS. He received his PhD at the University of Washington. Specializing in human-computer interaction, applied machine learning, and health, Xu develops intelligent behavior intervention systems to promote human health and well-being. His research covers two aspects -- 1) building deployable human-centered behavior models and 2) designing interactive user experiences -- to establish a complete system to improve end-users' well-being. Moreover, his research also goes beyond end-users and supports health experts by designing new human-AI collaboration paradigms in clinical settings. Xu has earned several awards, including 9 Best Paper, Best Paper Honorable Mention, and Best Artifact awards. His research has been covered by media outlets such as the Washington Post and ACM News. He was recognized as the Outstanding Student Award Winner at UbiComp 2022, the 2023 UW Distinguished Dissertation Award, and the 2024 Innovation and Technology Award at the Western Association of Graduate Schools.
Host: Stefanos Nikolaidis
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
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CS Colloquium: Niloufar Salehi - Designing Reliable Human-AI Interactions: Translating Languages and Matching Students
Tue, Apr 09, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Niloufar Salehi, UC Berkeley
Talk Title: Designing Reliable Human-AI Interactions: Translating Languages and Matching Students
Abstract: How can users trust an AI system that fails in unpredictable ways? Machine learning models, while powerful, can produce unpredictable results. This uncertainty becomes even more pronounced in areas where verification is challenging, such as in machine translation, and where reliance depends on adherence to community values, such as student assignment algorithms. Providing users with guidance on when to rely on a system is challenging because models can create a wide range of outputs (e.g. text), error boundaries are highly stochastic, and automated explanations themselves may be incorrect. In this talk, I will first focus on the case of health-care communication to share approaches to improving the reliability of ML-based systems by guiding users to gauge reliability and recover from potential errors. Next, I will focus on the case of student assignment algorithms to examine modeling assumptions and perceptions of fairness in AI systems. This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Niloufar Salehi is an assistant professor in the School of Information at UC, Berkeley where she is a member of Berkeley AI Research (BAIR). She studies human-computer interaction, with her research spanning education to healthcare to restorative justice. Her research interests are social computing, human-centered AI, and more broadly, human-computer interaction (HCI). Her work has been published and received awards in premier venues including ACM CHI, CSCW, and EMNLP and has been covered in VentureBeat, Wired, and the Guardian. She is a W. T. Grant Foundation scholar for her work on promoting equity in student assignment algorithms. She received her PhD in computer science from Stanford University in 2018.
Host: Souti Chattopadhyay
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 136
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
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Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Apr 10, 2024 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Receptions & Special Events
Bi-Weekly regular faculty meeting for invited full-time Computer Science faculty only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Assistant to CS Chair
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CAIS Seminar: Nowcasting Temporal Trends Using Indirect Surveys
Wed, Apr 10, 2024 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Ajitesh Srivastava, USC CAIS Associate Director & Research Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk Title: CAIS Seminar: Nowcasting Temporal Trends Using Indirect Surveys
Abstract: Indirect surveys, in which respondents provide information about other people they know, have been proposed for estimating (nowcasting) the size of a hidden population where privacy is important or the hidden population is hard to reach. Examples include estimating casualties in an earthquake, conditions among female sex workers, and the prevalence of drug use and infectious diseases. The Network Scaleup Method (NSUM) is the classical approach to developing estimates from indirect surveys, but it was designed for one-shot surveys. Further, it requires certain assumptions and asking for or estimating the number of individuals in each respondent’s network. In recent years, surveys have been increasingly deployed online and can collect data continuously (e.g., COVID-19 surveys on Facebook during much of the pandemic). Conventional NSUM can be applied to these scenarios by analyzing the data independently at each point in time, but this misses the opportunity of leveraging the temporal dimension. We propose to use the responses from indirect surveys collected over time and develop analytical tools (i) to prove that indirect surveys can provide better estimates for the trends of the hidden population over time, as compared to direct surveys and (ii) to identify appropriate temporal aggregations to improve the estimates. We demonstrate through extensive simulations that our approach outperforms traditional NSUM and direct surveying methods. We also empirically demonstrate the superiority of our approach on a real indirect survey dataset of COVID-19 cases.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
RSVP/Register for the Zoom webinar here: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LkSI20EOQPm5npI_d8w5HA
Biography: Dr. Ajitesh Srivastava is a USC CAIS associate director and Research Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He earned his PhD in computer science from USC. Dr. Srivastava’s research interests include social networks, algorithms, parallel computing, and machine learning applied to social good, crime, smart grids, and computer architecture.
Host: CAIS
More Info: https://cais.usc.edu/events/nowcasting-temporal-trends-using-indirect-surveys/
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LkSI20EOQPm5npI_d8w5HALocation: HYBRID: CPA 156 & Zoom
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LkSI20EOQPm5npI_d8w5HA
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Events
Event Link: https://cais.usc.edu/events/nowcasting-temporal-trends-using-indirect-surveys/
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CS Colloquium: Z. Morley Mao - Staying Ahead of the Arms Race in Cybersecurity: Realizing Effective Attack Prevention, Detection, and Mitigation for Legacy and Future Networked Systems.
Thu, Apr 11, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Z. Morley Mao, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Staying Ahead of the Arms Race in Cybersecurity: Realizing Effective Attack Prevention, Detection, and Mitigation for Legacy and Future Networked Systems.
Abstract: The landscape of cybersecurity is a dynamic arena, characterized by an ongoing arms race between malicious actors exploiting vulnerabilities and defenders striving to safeguard systems against potential devastation. With the increasing integration of cyberphysical systems like autonomous vehicles and AI/ML technologies into our daily lives, the reactive nature of our security measures poses significant risks. In this talk, I will articulate a forward-looking vision for cybersecurity research. Drawing upon the collective efforts of my team, I will delve into innovative approaches aimed at addressingsecurity challenges across diverse fronts. From enhancing the resilience of the time-honored DNS system to fortifying the security of ubiquitous mobile platforms, and extending to safeguarding ML-based systems within the burgeoning realms of IoT and autonomous vehicles, our focus is proactive. Our strategy entails the construction of inherently secure systems designed to systematically eliminate vulnerabilities. We advocate for the integration of formalisms derived from disciplines such as programming languages, coupled with the provision of robust security guarantees within the very fabric of the platform architecture. Through this proactive paradigm shift, we endeavor to usher in a new era of cybersecurity resilience and reliability. This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Z. Morley Mao is a Professor at the University of Michigan, having completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley on robust Internet routing protocol design and effective network measurement techniques to uncover network properties with security and performance implications. She is an ACM and IEEE Fellow, a recipient of the Sloan Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the ARMY YIP Award, and an IBM Faculty Award. Her other honors include the Morris Wellman Faculty Development Professor, EECS Achievement Award, College of Engineering George J. Huebner Research Excellence Award at University of Michigan. Her recent research focus encompasses adversarial machine learning, AV security, and next generation wireless networks.
Host: Harsha V. Madhyastha
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 136
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Faculty Affairs
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Robotics as an Eco-Effective Contingency for Weakened Ecosystems?
Thu, Apr 11, 2024 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Thomas Schmickl , Professor - Institute of Biology at the University of Graz, Austria
Talk Title: Robotics as an Eco-Effective Contingency for Weakened Ecosystems?
Abstract: Our planet is on the brink of the 6th mass extinction, as our ecosystems are rapidly losing both diversity and biomass. As intra- and inter-specific interaction networks weaken, ecosystems become increasingly unstable, setting off on a downward trajectory along a deadly spiral. In my keynote, I will explore how robotic systems can play a crucial role in supporting ecosystems and communities. I will show three levels of agency how a „tech for good“ approach might be helpful to fight ecosystem decay: Monitoring, intervention and restoration. By mitigating ecosystem decay, robots may buy us precious time to address the root causes of environmental crises. I will show innovative systems that we’ve developed over recent years — the initial strides toward going beyond mere animal-interaction systems by establishing eco-effective robotics.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.
Biography: Thomas Schmickl (https://www.thomasschmickl.eu) is full professor at the Institute of Biology at the University of Graz, Austria. There he also supervises the Artificial Life Lab (https://alife.uni-graz.at), which he founded in 2007 after returning from a HHMI visiting professorship in the USA. In 2012, he was appointed the Basler Chair of Excellence at the East Tennessee State University (ETSU). His research focuses on the biology of social insects and on ecological modeling, as well as on bio-inspired engineering including swarm-, modular-, hormone-, and evolutionary- robotics. He was/is a partner in the EU-funded projects I- Swarm, Symbrion, Replicator, FloraRobotica, RoboRoyale and serves as the leading scientist and consortium coordinator of the EU grants CoCoRo, ASSISIbf, subCULTron, Atempgrad and Hiveopolis. His research seeks to improve the current state-of-the-art in robotics to allow robotic agents to be more like animals or plants, by being more adaptive, resilient, and flexible. Living organisms are parts of his targeted bio-hybrid robotic systems, with the goal to form sustainable organism-technology symbioses. In 2018, he founded the Field of Excellence COLIBRI (Complexity of Life in Basic Research & Innovation, https://colibri.uni-graz.at) at University of Graz, a network of full professors researching complexity with a focus on living systems, joining forces across various disciplines.
Host: Prof. Wei-Min Shen, Associate Professor of Computer Science Practice
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 126
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
