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Events for the 3rd week of January

  • CS Colloquium: Hal Daume (University of Maryland) - Learning Language through Interaction

    Mon, Jan 13, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Hal Daume, University of Maryland

    Talk Title: Learning Language through Interaction

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: To have the broadest possible positive impact, machine learning-based natural language processing systems must be able to (a) learn when limited training data exists for the target tasks, languages (and varieties), and domains of interest, and (b) identify and mitigate potential harms in their use, in particular arising from the signals on which they are trained. I will first present new algorithms and applications for learning language processing systems through interaction with people, where implicit and/or explicit user feedback drives learning. I will then discuss learning challenges around "fairness" and how such interactive learning mechanisms can help address them.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Hal Daumé III is a Perotto Chair Professor in Computer Science and Language Science at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. His research focuses on developing learning algorithms for natural language processing, with a focus on interactive learning methods, and techniques for mitigating harms that can arise from automated systems. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 2006, was an inaugural diversity and inclusion co-chair at NeurIPS 2018, is an action editor for TACL, and is program co-chair for ICML 2020.

    Host: Fei Sha

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • CS Colloquium: Marine Carpuat (University of Maryland) - Divergences in Neural Machine Translation

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Marine Carpuat, University of Maryland

    Talk Title: Divergences in Neural Machine Translation

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Despite the explosion of online content worldwide, much information remains isolated by language barriers. While deep neural networks have dramatically improved machine translation (MT), truly breaking language barriers requires not only translating accurately, but also understanding what is said and how it is said across languages. I will first challenge the assumption that translation always preserves meaning, and discuss how to automatically detect when the meaning of a translation diverges from its source. Next, I will show how modeling divergences between MT model hypotheses and reference human translations can improve MT. Finally, I will argue that translation does not necessarily need to preserve all properties of the input and introduce a family of models that let us tailor translation style while preserving input meaning. Taken together, these results illustrate how modeling divergences from common assumptions about translation data can not only improve MT, but also broaden the framing of MT to make it more responsive to user needs.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

    Biography: Marine Carpuat is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on multilingual natural language processing and machine translation. Before joining the faculty at Maryland, she was a Research Scientist at the National Research Council Canada. She received a PhD in Computer Science and a MPhil in Electrical Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, and a Diplome d'Ingenieur from the French Grande Ecole Supelec. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, research awards from Google and Amazon, best paper awards at *SEM and TALN, and an Outstanding Teaching Award.

    Host: Yan Liu

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Engineering Honors Program Information Session 1

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs, Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Interested in becoming part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program? If so, please join the honors program faculty as they present information on the Engineering Honors Program. Come learn about the research and innovation track opportunities. Refreshments will be served. We look forward to seeing you there!

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Stefano Ferretti, University of Bologna, Italy

    Talk Title: Are Distributed Ledger Technologies Ready for Smart Transportation Systems?

    Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things

    Abstract: In this talk, I'll present a system architecture that exploits Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and related software technologies to promote the development of smart transportation systems. DLTs provide very interesting features, such as immutability, traceability and verifiability of data. Thus, the designed system architecture allows creating, storing and sharing data generated by vehicles and users through their sensors, while moving. However, some doubts on the scalability and responsiveness of these technologies appear to be well-founded. Experimental results of a real test-bed over IOTA, a promising DLT for IoT, will be discussed.


    Biography: Stefano Ferretti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Bologna. He received the Laurea degree (summa cum laude) and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Bologna respectively in 2001 and in 2005. His current research interests include distributed systems, complex networks, data science, fintech and blockchain technologies, multimedia communications, hybrid and distributed simulation. He is in the editorial board of the Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory (SIMPAT) journal, Elsevier, and of the Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games, published by Springer. He is in the technical committee of Computer Communications, Elsevier, as well as Online Social Networks and Media, Elsevier. He acted as editor of special issues on other international journals (i.e., Wiley CPE, Elsevier ComCom). He acted as chairs for several conferences and workshops within flagship conferences, e.g., ACM Mobisys, IEEE InfoCom.

    Host: Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, bkrishna@usc.edu

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • ISE 651 - Epstein Seminar

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Talk Title: Introduction to Class (No speaker this week)

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Resume Lab

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Work on your resume in the presence of a career advisor to get tips on the spot.

    Remember to bring your laptop!

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Seminar - Lyman L. Handy Colloquia

    Tue, Jan 14, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Caroline A. Ross, Iron garnets: enabling materials for magnonics, photonics and spintronics

    Abstract: Ferromagnetic insulator thin films have emerged as an important component of magnonic, spintronic and magnetooptical devices. Yttrium iron garnet in particular is an excellent insulator with low damping, and has been incorporated into heterostructures that exhibit a plethora of spintronic and magnonic phenomena including spin pumping, spin Seebeck, proximity effects and spin wave propagation. Rare earth (RE) garnet films are both magnetic and magnetoelastic, and their properties can be manipulated by choice of composition and substrate. We grow films of bismuth, thulium, europium, dysprosium and terbium iron garnets with high structural quality down to a thickness of 2.5 nm, about 2 unit cells, and describe the transmission of spin across the interface of garnet/Pt bilayers. Spin orbit torque drives domain wall motion at room temperature at velocities exceeding 4 km/s, and chiral textures and skyrmions are present in garnet films. Iron garnets also exhibit magnetooptical activity and high transparency in the infrared, and we demonstrate integrated magnetooptical isolators comprising Bi and Ce garnets to control the flow of light in photonic integrated circuits.

    References: Nature Nanotech. (2019), Optica 6 473 (2019), ACS Photonics 5, 5010 (2018), Phys. Rev. Mater. 2, 094405 (2018), Nature Materials 16, 309-“314 (2017), Adv. Electron. Mater. 3 1600376 (2017), Phys. Rev. B 95 115428 (2017)

    Biography: Prof. Ross joined MIT in 1997 and is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. From 1991 to 1997, she was an engineer at Komag Inc, a manufacturer of hard disks. She received her undergraduate degree and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge University. She has been chair of the Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Conference and the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, and has 21 patents awarded and has authored over 400 publications. Prof. Ross is a fellow of the American Physical Society, Institute of Physics (UK), IEEE and Materials Research Society. Her research interests include the magnetic, magnetooptical and multiferroic properties and device applications of thin films, particularly complex oxides such as garnets and perovskites, and the self-assembly of block copolymers and nanocomposite films.

    Host: Dr. Armani

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Karen Woo/Mork Family

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Jan 15, 2020 @ 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: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101

    Audiences: Invited Faculty Only

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Gateway Lab

    Wed, Jan 15, 2020 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Take part in a live tutorial to help you navigate Viterbi Career Gateway, a powerful job and internship search tool available ONLY to Viterbi students.

    Remember to bring your laptop!

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • AME Seminar

    Wed, Jan 15, 2020 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jay P. Gore, Purdue

    Talk Title: High-Performance Computing Model for Bio-Fuel Combustion with Artificial Intelligence

    Abstract: Lean blowout (LBO) calculations and statistical analysis for a conventional (A-2) and an alternative bio-jet fuel (C-1) are performed in a realistic gas turbine combustor geometry. The high-performance computing methodology is developed based on large eddy simulation (LES) models for turbulence and detailed chemistry and flamelet based models for combustion. The bio-jet fuel (C-1) exhibits significantly larger CH2O concentrations in the fuel-rich regions compared to the conventional petroleum fuel (A-2) at an identical equivalence ratio. As expected, the temperature of the recirculating hot gases is an important parameter for maintaining a stable flame. If this temperature falls below a certain threshold value for a given fuel, the evaporation rates and heat release rates decrease significantly and cause lean blowout. This study established the minimum recirculating gas temperature needed to maintain a stable flame for the A-2 and C-1 fuels. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, based on high fidelity LES data, aimed at early identification of the incipient LBO condition. Sensor-based monitoring using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) detected the onset of LBO approximately 20 ms ahead of the event. A convolutional autoencoder was trained for feature extraction from the mass fraction of the OH for all time-steps resulting in significant dimensionality reduction. The extracted features along with ground truth labels are used to train a support vector machine (SVM) model for binary classification. The binary classification indicated an LBO approximately 30 ms ahead of the actual blowout. This and other early results highlight the promise of AI in much needed engine health monitoring.

    Host: AME Department

    More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

    Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

    Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

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  • Viterbi Get Connected Fair

    Thu, Jan 16, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations, Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    Would you like to join a club, organization, or design team?

    Come by the Get Connected Engineering Involvement Fair Thursday, January 16th from 11:00 AM-2:00 PM in the Epstein Family Plaza (E-Quad).

    There will be plenty of booths for you to choose from! All you have to do is walk up and start talking with a representative to learn more about them.

    You are bound to find at least one club, organization, or design team that is right for you, or you can just attend to learn more about the different that Viterbi has to offer. Hope to see you there!

    Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs

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  • CS Colloquium: Arjun Guha (University of Massachusetts Amherst) - New Abstractions for New Programming Platforms

    Thu, Jan 16, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Arjun Guha, University of Massachusetts Amherst

    Talk Title: New Abstractions for New Programming Platforms

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Programmers today have to wrestle with a wide variety of programming platforms. However, traditional programming abstractions and tools were designed for an earlier era, and are often ineffective today, e.g., when building scalable cloud services, reliable robot controllers, and robust web applications. To address these kinds of challenges, we need to rethink the abstractions and tools that programmers employ.

    In this talk, we first discuss problems that arise in "serverless computing", which is a new approach to cloud computing. We carefully define an operational semantics for serverless computing, which we then use to 1) formulate correctness criteria, 2) design new modularity mechanisms, and 3) develop a serverless computing accelerator that uses language-based sandboxing and speculative optimizations.

    Next, we present fundamental limitations of the web programming model, which affect the design of JavaScript, and make it hard to build robust programming tools that run in web browsers. We address this problem by extending JavaScript with first-class continuations, and efficiently compile the extended language to run in unmodified web browsers.

    Finally, we present challenges that arise when debugging robot controllers, and why traditional debugging tools do not help. We present an interactive program repair tool, which uses a MAX-SMT solver to search for corrections to a robot state machine, given a small number of human-provided inputs.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium



    Biography: Arjun Guha is an associate professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Using the tools and techniques of programming languages, his research addresses security, reliability, and performance problems in web applications, systems, networking, and robotics. His work has received an ACM SIGPLAN Most Influential Paper Award, an ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award, an ACM SIGPLAN Research Highlight, and a Google Faculty Research Award.


    Host: Ramesh Govindan

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • NL Seminar Leveraging Context for Natural Language Processing

    Thu, Jan 16, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Samee Ibraheem , UC Berkeley

    Talk Title: Leveraging Context for Natural Language Processing

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Neural networks have allowed for a host of advances in natural language processing, from text classification to machine translation. However, the effects of contextual information, such as speaker gender or race, on NLP tasks is still an active area of research. In this talk, we first explore how such context can affect an NLP systems accuracy. Next, we investigate methods for incorporating additional context into a machine translation system. Finally, we investigate methods for collecting additional contextual information when the signal is sparse.

    Biography: Samee Ibraheem is a PhD student in Computer Science at UC Berkeley working with John DeNero on incorporating context for NLP applications. He received a Bachelors in Neurobiology from Harvard University and is currently supported by an NSF Fellowship.

    Host: Emily Sheng

    More Info: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar

    Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/s/GDWdF/

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Conf Rm 689

    WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/s/GDWdF/

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: https://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar

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  • Gateway Lab, Powerful job and internship search tool

    Thu, Jan 16, 2020 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Take part in a live tutorial to help you navigate Viterbi Career Gateway, a powerful job and internship search tool available ONLY to Viterbi students.

    Remember to bring your laptop!

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • Transfer Day

    Fri, Jan 17, 2020

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    TRANSFER DAY FEATURES: A presentation from Viterbi Admission, Campus Tours, Academic Department Visits, and more!

    If you have questions about engineering and the transfer process then Transfer Day is for you. Transfer Day is a half-day comprehensive program designed to give you the most in-depth look at the transfer process and academic life at USC. Specifically, the program includes presentations on the admission process, transfer credit policy, academics, financial aid. You will also have the opportunity to visit an academic department or take a campus tour. Reservations are required.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - 2nd Floor

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Michael Cox

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  • Astani Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Fri, Jan 17, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Thomas Petersen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Continuum Modeling of Reactive Colloids: Transformation of Cement Paste from Sol to Cohesive Gel

    Abstract: See attached

    Host: Dr. Roger Ghanem

    More Information: T. Peterson Abstract.pdf

    Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Resume Lab

    Fri, Jan 17, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Work on your resume in the presence of a career advisor to get tips on the spot.

    Remember to bring your laptop!

    For more information about Labs & Open Forums, please visit viterbicareers.usc.edu/workshops.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

    Add to Google CalendarDownload ICS File for OutlookDownload iCal File