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Events for the 4th week of February

  • ASBME Makeathon Competition

    Sun, Feb 19, 2017 @ 12:00 AM - 06:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Student Activity


    The Makeathon is a hackathon for designers instead of coders. In 30 hours, 18 teams of 4-5 people will brainstorm, design, and CAD a device under material and functional constraints. At the eight hour mark, teams will present preliminary designs to a panel of judges who will deliberate and select five teams that will move on to device fabrication. These five teams will utilize the USC Fabrication Lab to construct their designs from a variety of materials and methods. All teams will prepare a final presentation to be delivered to the panel of judges as well as the rest of the students that will cover design motivations, device functionality, impact on the field or on client needs, as well as other device- and field-related information. There will be one grand prize winner chosen from the four teams sent to production and two runner-up winners chosen from the remaining teams based on final presentations. Though biomedical engineering students are the target demographic, undergraduates from other fields will also be encouraged to participate.

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - 450, 350, and 227

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Breanne Grady

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Feb 20, 2017 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: PRESIDENT'S DAY (NO SEMINAR), PRESIDENT'S DAY (NO SEMINAR)

    Talk Title: PRESIDENT'S DAY (NO SEMINAR)

    Host: Qifa Zhou

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • USC Stem Cell Seminar: David Scadden, Harvard University

    Tue, Feb 21, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: David Scadden, Harvard University

    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/stem-cell-seminar

    Location: Eli & Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Resch. (BCC) - First Floor Conference Room

    WebCast Link: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/stem-cell-seminar

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell

    Event Link: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events

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  • CS Colloquium: Shivaram Venkataraman (UC Berkeley) - Scalable Systems for Fast and Easy Machine Learning

    Tue, Feb 21, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Shivaram Venkataraman, UC Berkeley

    Talk Title: Scalable Systems for Fast and Easy Machine Learning

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.

    Machine learning models trained on massive datasets power a number of applications; from machine translation to detecting supernovae in astrophysics. However the end of Moore's law and the shift towards distributed computing architectures presents many new challenges for building and executing such applications in a scalable fashion.

    In this talk I will present my research on systems that make it easier to develop new machine learning applications and scale them while achieving high performance. I will first present programming models that let users easily build distributed machine learning applications. Next, I will show how we can exploit the structure of machine learning workloads to build low-overhead performance models that can help users understand scalability and simplify large scale deployments. Finally, I will describe scheduling techniques that can improve scalability and achieve high performance when using distributed data processing frameworks.


    Biography: Shivaram Venkataraman is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley and is advised by Mike Franklin and Ion Stoica. His research interests are in designing systems and algorithms for large scale data processing and machine-learning. He is a recipient of the Siebel Scholarship and best-of-conference citations at VLDB and KDD. Before coming to Berkeley, he completed his M.S at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

    Host: CS Department

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651

    Tue, Feb 21, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Benjamin Recht , Associate Professor, UC Berkeley

    Talk Title: Optimization Challenges in Deep Learning

    Host: Dr. Suvrajeet Sen

    More Information: February 21, 2017_Recht.pdf

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Tue, Feb 21, 2017 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Bruno Olshausen, Ph.D, Professor, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and School of Optometry Director, Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience University of California, Berkeley

    Talk Title: Neural Computations for Active Perception

    Biography: http://redwood.berkeley.edu/bruno/

    Host: Bartlett Mel, PhD

    More Information: Bruno Olshausen flyer 2.pdf

    Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Computer Science General Faculty Meeting

    Wed, Feb 22, 2017 @ 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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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems

    Wed, Feb 22, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Sanjit A. Seshia , Professor, University of California, Berkeley

    Talk Title: Formal Inductive Synthesis for Cyber-Physical Systems

    Abstract: Cyber-physical systems are computational systems tightly integrated with physical processes. Examples include modern automobiles,fly-by-wire aircraft, software-controlled medical devices, robots, and many more. In recent times, these systems have exploded in complexity due to the growing amount of software and networking integrated into physical environments via real-time control loops. At the same time, they typically must be designed with strong verifiable guarantees.

    In this talk, I will describe how formal inductive synthesis --- algorithmic synthesis from examples with formal guarantees --- can be brought to bear on some important problems in the modeling, design, and analysis of cyber-physical systems. Both theory and industrial case studies will be discussed, with a special focus on the automotive domain.


    Biography: Sanjit A. Seshia is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. His research interests are in dependable computing and computational logic, with a current focus on applying automated formal methods to problems in cyber-physical systems, computer security, electronic design automation, and synthetic biology. His Ph.D. thesis work on the UCLID verifier and decision procedure helped pioneer the area of satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) and SMT-based verification. He is co-author of a widely-used textbook on embedded systems and has led the development of technologies for cyber-physical systems education based on formal methods. His awards and honors include a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Frederick Emmons Terman Award for contributions to electrical engineering and computer science education, and the School of Computer Science Distinguished Dissertation Award at Carnegie Mellon University.

    Host: Pierluigi Nuzzo

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Estela Lopez

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  • MHI CommNetS seminar

    Wed, Feb 22, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Ram Vasudevan, University of Michigan

    Talk Title: Infinite Dimensional Optimization for Safety Critical Human-in-the-Loop Systems

    Series: CommNetS

    Abstract: A predominant portion of healthcare spending is devoted to the medical care of unintentional injuries, such as those arising from car accidents or falls. By incorporating automation to predict the likelihood of injury and to design and verify personalized treatment, the burden on healthcare professionals, and thus the overall cost of treatment, can be greatly reduced. Unfortunately, the adoption of automation has been forestalled due to a lack of computationally tractable tools able to identify models of human interaction with the environment and machines, analyze extracted models for perceived threats to determine when aid is required, and synthesize strategies to increase safety in unforeseen circumstances. To address these issues as part of an emerging systems theory for Human-in-the-Loop Systems (HLS), this talk will describe two new techniques each relying upon a new algorithmic framework for infinite dimensional optimization.

    The first technique is a provably convergent hybrid optimal control algorithm that can automatically identify an individual-specific model of locomotion. When applied to a nine person motion capture walking experiment, the models identified by the algorithm revealed morphological and neurological pathologies. The second technique is a scalable convex programming approach for simultaneous reachable set computation and personalized controller synthesis for safety critical HLS. For locomotion, this approach determines a likelihood for falling while constructing an optimal feedback control law to reduce the risk of injury. This tool is able to tractable predict those who are greatest risk of falling in a completely non-invasive manner.

    Biography: Ram Vasudevan is an assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan with appointments in the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the University of Michigan's Robotics Program. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and an Honors Degree in Physics in May 2006, an MS degree in Electrical Engineering in May 2009, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering in December 2012 all from the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Locomotion Group at MIT from 2012 till 2014 before joining the University of Michigan in 2015. His research interests include dynamical systems, optimization, and robotics especially to applications involving human interaction with Cyber Physical Systems.

    Host: Prof. Insoon Yang

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Annie Yu

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  • Lyman Handy Colloquia

    Thu, Feb 23, 2017 @ 12:45 AM - 01:50 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Arvind Varma, Purdue University

    Talk Title: Selected Topics Related to Energy and Chemicals

    Host: Dr. Theodore Tsotsis

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Aleessa Atienza

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  • CS Colloquium: Xiang Ren (UIUC) - Effort-Light StructMine: Turning Massive Corpora into Structures

    Thu, Feb 23, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Xiang Ren, UIUC

    Talk Title: Effort-Light StructMine: Turning Massive Corpora into Structures

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.

    The real-world data, though massive, are hard for machines to resolve as they are largely unstructured and in the form of natural-language text. One of the grand challenges is to turn such massive corpora into machine-actionable structures. Yet, most existing systems have heavy reliance on human effort in the process of structuring various corpora, slowing down the development of downstream applications.

    In this talk, I will introduce a data-driven framework, Effort-Light StructMine, that extracts structured facts from massive corpora without explicit human labeling effort. In particular, I will discuss how to solve three StructMine tasks under Effort-Light StructMine framework: from identifying typed entities in text, to fine-grained entity typing, to extracting typed relationships between entities. Together, these three solutions form a clear roadmap for turning a massive corpus into a structured network to represent its factual knowledge. Finally, I will share some directions towards mining corpus-specific structured networks for knowledge discovery.

    Biography: Xiang Ren is a Computer Science PhD candidate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working with Jiawei Han and the Data and Information System (DAIS)Research Lab. Xiang's research develops data-driven methods for turning unstructured text data into machine-actionable structures. More broadly, his research interests span data mining, machine learning, and natural language processing, with a focus on making sense of massive text corpora. His research has been recognized with a Google PhD Fellowship, Yahoo!-DAIS Research Excellence Award, C. W. Gear Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and has been transferred to US Army Research Lab, NIH, Microsoft, Yelp and TripAdvisor.

    Host: CS Department

    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program Colloquium

    Fri, Feb 24, 2017 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    University Calendar


    Join us for a presentation by Dr. Nicolas Wey-Gomez, Professor of History at California Institute of Technology, titled "Columbus's Other Worlds, Faith, Science, and the Invention of a New Continent."

    Location: 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ramon Borunda/Academic Services

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  • Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems

    Fri, Feb 24, 2017 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Yuanxun Ethan Wang, Professor at UCLA

    Talk Title: Time-Varying Electromagnetic Devices: Breaking the Fundamental Limits of Passives

    Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam

    More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Yuanxun Ethan Wang.pdf

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Jenny Lin

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  • Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Feb 24, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Mario Berges, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

    Talk Title: Towards Autonomous Urban Infrastructure: Why and How

    Abstract: Abstract
    The worldwide growth of urban population, climate change and resource constraints are driving a rethinking of the way we design, construct and operate the civil infrastructure that supports our cities, both new and old. Concurrently, recent advances in sensing and communication are allowing us to peer into urban phenomena and infrastructure in a dramatically different way. However, cost-effective and scalable solutions for these so-called "smart cities" remain challenging. In this talk, I will describe recent efforts by my group and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University to address these scalability challenges through novel applications of sensing and machine learning. In particular, I will focus on indirect sensing techniques that allow us to extract granular information about infrastructure conditions at a reduced instrumentation/labor cost and describe two research projects in this domain: one on electricity demand disaggregation, and one on structural health monitoring.


    Biography: Dr. Mario Bergés is an Associate Professor, at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Carnegie Mellon University. Bergés studied under USC Sonny Astani Department Chair Lucio Soibelman when receiving his PhD at Carnegied Mellon University. His research interests are in making our built environment more operationally efficient and robust through the use of information technologies, so that it can better deal with future resource constraints and a changing environment. In other words, his interests lie in providing buildings, and otherman-made structures that support our urban environment, with the ability to sense, plan and act autonomously, just as many living organisms do.

    More Information: CEE Seminar_ Dr. Mario Berges.pdf

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Engineering Exploratorium (EngX)

    Sat, Feb 25, 2017 @ 09:00 AM - 02:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering K-12 STEM Center

    University Calendar


    Professor Andrea Armani's Engineering Exploratorium will present the public with interactive demonstrations about research in photonics and the ways photonics enhance our daily lives. This is a festive, fun celebration of the cutting edges of engineering research. More info and sign up: http://armani.usc.edu/engx/

    Location: Viterbi eQuad & Epstein Family Breezeway

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Prof. Andrea Armani

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