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Events for the 2nd week of March
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A Network-Centric Approach To Data Science: From Distributed Learning To Social Recommender Systems
Mon, Mar 07, 2016 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Zhenming Liu, Princeton University
Talk Title: A Network-Centric Approach To Data Science: From Distributed Learning To Social Recommender Systems
Abstract: Networks play important roles in various stages of a data science life cycle, including the design of scalable platforms, the collection of data, and the analysis of statistical models. I will talk about my efforts to develop a suite of network-based techniques in these stages. After briefly describing my work on designing scalable platforms for online machine learning algorithms and that for sampling data from the Web, I will discuss the details of a recent project that uses network analysis to study social recommender systems. A social recommender system leverages its users social connections to improve recommendation service. The recommender system we have designed simultaneously maximizes (a) an individuals benefit from using a social network and (b) the networks efficiency in disseminating information. The design solution brings together techniques from spectral analysis, random walk theory, and large-scale optimization.
Biography: Zhenming Liu received his PhD from Harvard University (working with Michael Mitzenmacher) and then spent two years as a postdoc at Princeton University (primarily working with Mung Chiang and Jennifer Rexford). Presently, he is a machine learning researcher for a quantitative hedge fund. Dr. Liu's research focus is the intersection of data science and network analysis; he designs both algorithms that analyze network structures inherent in the data (e.g., social and biological networks) and scalable platforms in support of big data analytics. He has received several awards for his research, including a Best Paper Runner Up at INFOCOM 2015 and a Best Student Paper Award at ECML/PKDD 2010.
Host: Professor Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Location: 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Theodore Low
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Mar 07, 2016 @ 12:30 PM - 01:49 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chethan Pandarinath, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow Stanford University Departments of Neurosurgery and Electrical Engineering
Talk Title: Advancing brain-machine interfaces towards clinical viability
Host: K. Kirk Shung, PhD
More Information: Abstract_Bio_ Chethan Pandarinath.pdf
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EE-EP Seminar - Mona Zebarjadi, Monday, March 7th in EEB 132 @ 2:00pm
Mon, Mar 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mona Zebarjadi, Rutgers University
Talk Title: Manipulation of Electricity and Heat at Nanoscales
Abstract: Fundamental understanding of electron and phonon transport enables us to manipulate electricity and heat at nanoscales. Advances in computations and in parallel in nanotechnology, allow design of specific quantum potentials inside materials and devices to guide charge and heat carriers. The resulting capability of manipulating electricity and heat inspires design of new electronic devices, power generators, and heat pumps. In this talk, I will discuss several examples to elucidate our approach. First I will discuss novel strategies to enhance materials carrier mobility and conductivity for design of fast transistors, switches, and thermoelectric modules via un-conventional doping schemes including 3D modulation-doping and invisible-doping. Transport modeling and experimental results on single layer graphene will be presented next as a design example of active and passive coolers. Finally, design of solid-state thermionic coolers in micron-scales (using Monte-Carlo simulations) as well as nano-scales (using first-principles modeling approach) will be described.
Biography: Mona Zebarjadi is a professor of mechanical engineering at Rutgers University. Her research interests are in electron and phonon transport modeling; materials and device design, fabrication and characterization; with emphasis on energy conversion systems such as thermoelectric, thermionic, and thermomagnetic power generators, and heat management in high power electronics and optoelectronic devices. She received her Bachelor's degree in physics from Sharif University in 2004 and her PhD in EE from UCSC in 2009, after which she spent 3 years at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow working jointly with electrical and mechanical engineering departments. She joined Rutgers University in January 2013. She is the recipient of 2014 AFOSR career award, 2015 A.W. Tyson assistant professorship award, MRS graduate student gold medal, and SWE electronics for imaging scholarship.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
EE 598 Cyber-Physical Systems Seminar Series
Mon, Mar 07, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Saman Zonouz, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University
Talk Title: Trustworthy Critical Infrastructures Threats, Challenges, and Countermeasures Applications
Abstract: Critical cyber-physical infrastructures, such as the power grid, integrate networks of computational and physical processes to provide the people across the globe with essential functionalities and services. Protecting these critical infrastructures is a vital necessity because the failure of these systems would have a debilitating impact on economic security and public health and safety. Our research and development projects aim at provision of real-world solutions to facilitate the secure and reliable operation of next-generation critical infrastructures and require interdisciplinary research efforts across adaptive systems and network security, cyber-physical systems, and trustworthy real-time detection and response mechanisms. In this talk, I will focus on real past and potential future threats against critical infrastructures and embedded devices, and discuss the challenges in design, implementation, and analysis of security solutions to protect cyber-physical platforms. I will introduce novel classes of working systems that we have developed to overcome these challenges in practice, and finally conclude with several concrete directions for future research.
Biography: Saman Zonouz is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Rutgers University since September 2014 and the Director of the 4N6 Cyber Security and Forensics Laboratory. His research has been awarded NSF CAREER Award in 2015, Google Security Reward in 2015, Top-3 Demo at IEEE SmartGridComm 2015, the Faculty Fellowship Award by AFOSR in 2013, the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE SmartGridComm 2013, the University EARLY CAREER Research award in 2012 as well as the Provost Research Award in 2011. The 4N6 research is currently supported by National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Energy (DOE), Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E), Department of Education (DOE), Siemens Research Labs (SRL), WinRiver, GrammaTech, Google, and Fortinet Corporation including tech-to-market initiatives. Saman's current research focuses on systems security and privacy, trustworthy cyber-physical critical infrastructures, binary/malware analysis and reverse engineering, as well as adaptive intrusion tolerance architectures. Saman has served as the chair, program committee member, guest editor and a reviewer for top international conferences and journals. Saman serves on Editorial Board for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science, specifically, intrusion tolerance architectures for the cyber-physical infrastructures, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CAMS Colloquium: Shang-Hua Teng (USC) - Through the Lens of the Laplacian Paradigm: Big Data and Scalable Algorithms -- a Pragmatic Match Made On Earth
Mon, Mar 07, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shang-Hua Teng, USC
Talk Title: Through the Lens of the Laplacian Paradigm: Big Data and Scalable Algorithms -- a Pragmatic Match Made On Earth
Abstract: In the age of Big Data, efficient algorithms are in higher demand now more than ever before. While Big Data takes us into the asymptotic world envisioned by our pioneers, the explosive growth of problem size has also significantly challenged the classical notion of efficient algorithms:
Algorithms that used to be considered efficient, according to polynomial-time characterization, may no longer be adequate for solving today's problems. It is not just desirable, but essential, that efficient algorithms should be scalable. In other words, their complexity should be nearly linear or sub-linear with respect to the problem size. Thus, scalability, not just polynomial-time computability, should be elevated as the central complexity notion for characterizing efficient computation.
In this talk, I will discuss the emerging Laplacian Paradigm, which has led to breakthroughs in scalable algorithms for several fundamental problems in network analysis, machine learning, and scientific computing. I will focus on three recent applications: (1) PageRank Approximation (and identification of network nodes with significant PageRanks). (2) Random-Walk Sparsification. (3) Scalable Newton's Method for Gaussian Sampling.
Biography: Dr. Shang-Hua Teng has twice won the prestigious Godel Prize in theoretical computer science, first in 2008, for developing the theory of smoothed analysis , and then in 2015, for designing the groundbreaking nearly-linear time Laplacian solver for network systems. Both are joint work with Dan Spielman of Yale --- his long-time collaborator. Smoothed analysis is fundamental for modeling and analyzing practical algorithms, and the Laplacian paradigm has since led to several breakthroughs in network analysis, matrix computation, and optimization. Citing him as, "one of the most original theoretical computer scientists in the world", the Simons Foundation named Teng a 2014 Simons Investigator, for pursuing long-term curiosity-driven fundamental research. He and his collaborators also received the best paper award at ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) for what's considered to be the "first improvement in 10 years" of a fundamental optimization problem --- the computation of maximum flows and minimum cuts in a network. In addition, he is known for his joint work with Xi Chen and Xiaotie Deng that characterized the complexity for computing an approximate Nash equilibrium in game theory, and his joint papers on market equilibria in computational economics. He and his collaborators also pioneered the development of well-shaped Dalaunay meshing algorithms for arbitrary three-dimensional geometric domains, which settled a long-term open problem in numerical simulation, also a fundamental problem in computer graphics. Software based on this development was used at the University of Illinois for the simulation of advanced rockets. Teng is also interested in mathematical board games. With his former Ph.D. student Kyle Burke, he designed and analyzed a game called Atropos , which is played on the Sperner's triangle and based on the beautiful, celebrated Sperner's Lemma. In 2000 at UIUC, Teng was named on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students for his class, "Network Security and Cryptography". He has worked and consulted for Microsoft Research, Akamai, IBM Almaden Research Center, Intel Corporation, Xerox PARC, and NASA Ames Research Center, for which he received fifteen patents for his work on compiler optimization, Internet technology, and social network.
Host: USC CAMS
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 414
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Junior Faculty Candidate Mini-symposium: Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
Tue, Mar 08, 2016 @ 08:30 AM - 04:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: -, -
Talk Title: -
Abstract: 10:30 a.m.
Blood cell engineering and drug discovery using iPS cells
Sergei Doulatov, PhD
Boston Children's Hospital
11:45 a.m.
Cell diversity in liver regeneration and cancer development
Joan Font-Burgada, PhD
University of California, San Diego
2 p.m.
Self-renewal of human hematopoietic progenitor cells: From the clinic to the laboratory and back to the clinic
Hsiang-Ying (Sherry) Lee, PhD
3:15 p.m.
Towards engineering developmental systems: A new family of synthetic cell-cell communication pathways to control multicellular self-organization
Leonardo Morsut, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
4:30 p.m.
Development and evolution of the human cerebral cortex
Alexander Pollen, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Reception to follow
Host: Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
More Info: https://stemcell.usc.edu/events/details/?event_id=919129
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: https://stemcell.usc.edu/events/details/?event_id=919129
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: Andreas Haeberlen (U. of Pennsylvania) - Accountability for Distributed Systems
Tue, Mar 08, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andreas Haeberlen, U. of Pennsylvania
Talk Title: Accountability for Distributed Systems
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium
Many of our everyday activities are now performed online - whether it is banking, shopping, or chatting with friends. Behind the scenes, these activities are implemented by large distributed systems that often contain machines from several different organizations. Usually, these machines do what we expect them to, but occasionally they 'misbehave' - sometimes by mistake, sometimes to gain an advantage, and sometimes because of a deliberate attack.
In society, accountability is widely used to counter such threats.
Accountability incentivizes good performance, exposes problems, and builds trust between competing individuals and organizations. In this talk, I will argue that accountability is also a powerful tool for designing distributed systems. An accountable distributed system ensures that 'misbehavior' can be detected, and that it can be linked to a specific machine via some form of digital evidence. The evidence can then be used just like in the 'offline' world, e.g., to correct the problem and/or to take action against the responsible organizations.
I will give an overview of our progress towards accountable distributed systems, ranging from theoretical foundations and efficient algorithms to practical applications. I will also present one result in detail: a technique that can detect information leaks through covert timing channels.
Biography: Andreas Haeberlen is a Raj and Neera Singh Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in distributed systems, networking, and security. Andreas received his PhD degree in Computer Science from Rice University in 2009; he is the recipient of a NSF CAREER award, and he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society.
Host: CS Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 136
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Epstein Institute Seminar - ISE 651
Tue, Mar 08, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Karen Smilowitz, Northwestern University
Talk Title: Logistical Challenges at Mass Participation Events: Operations Research Models for Marathon Planning
Host: John Carlsson
More Information: March 8, 2016_Smilowitz.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Michele ISE
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: Hristo Paskov (Stanford) -Learning with N-Grams: from Massive Scales to Compressed Representations
Tue, Mar 08, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hristo Paskov, Stanford
Talk Title: Learning with N-Grams: from Massive Scales to Compressed Representations
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium
N-gram models are essential in any kind of text processing; they offer simple baselines that are surprisingly competitive with more complicated "state of the art" techniques. I will present a survey of my work for learning with arbitrarily long N-grams at massive scales. This framework combines fast matrix multiplication with a dual learning paradigm that I am developing to reconcile sparsity-inducing penalties with Kernels. The presentation will also introduce Dracula, a new form of deep learning based on classical ideas from compression. Dracula is a combinatorial optimization problem, and I will discuss some its problem structure and use this to visualize its solution surface.
The lecture will be available to stream HERE. Open in new window or tab for best results.
Biography: Hristo Paskov was born in Bulgaria and grew up in New York. He received a B.S. and M.Eng. in Computer Science from MIT while conducting research at the MIT Datacenter and Tomaso Poggio's group (CBCL). He is currently finishing a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford under the advisement of John Mitchell and Trevor Hastie. His research spans machine learning, optimization, and algorithms in order to build large-scale statistical methods and data representations. He is developing a new deep learning paradigm that uses compression to find compact data representations that are useful for statistical inference. His work has provided state of the art methods for security and natural language processing.
Host: CS Department
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
From Communication to Sensing and Learning: An Information Theoretic Perspective
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Hamed Hassani, Postdoctoral Scholar/ETH Zurich
Talk Title: From Communication to Sensing and Learning: An Information Theoretic Perspective
Abstract: We are witnessing a new era of science -” ushered in by our ability to collect massive amounts of data and by unprecedented ways to learn about the physical world. Beyond the challenges of storage and communication, there are new frontiers in the acquisition, analysis and exploration of data. In this talk, I will view these frontiers through the lens of information theory. I will argue that information theory lies at the center of data science, offering insights beyond its classical applications. As a concrete example, I will consider the problem of optimal data acquisition, a challenge that arises in active learning, optimal sensing and experimental design. Based on information theoretic foundations, and equipped with tools from submodular optimization theory, I will present a rigorous analysis of the widely-used sequential information maximization policy (also known as the information-gain heuristic). Our analysis establishes conditions under which this policy provably works near-optimally and identifies situations where the policy fails. In the latter case, our framework suggests novel, efficient surrogate objectives and algorithms that outperform classical techniques.
Biography: Hamed Hassani is a post-doctoral scholar at the Institute for Machine Learning at ETH Zurich. He received a Ph.D. degree in Computer and Communication Sciences from EPFL, Lausanne. Prior to that, he received a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran. Hamed's fields of interest include machine learning, coding and information theory as well as theory and applications of graphical models. He is the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Information Theory Society Thomas M. Cover Dissertation Award. His co-authored paper at NIPS 2015 was selected for an oral (plenary) presentation, and his co-authored paper at ISIT 2015 received the IEEE Jack Keil Wolf ISIT Student Paper Award.
Host: Professor Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
CS Colloquium: XiaoFeng Wang (Indiana University at Bloomington) - Security Innovations in the Big-Data Era
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: XiaoFeng Wang, Indiana University at Bloomington
Talk Title: Security Innovations in the Big-Data Era
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium
The rapid progress in computing has produced a huge amount of data, which will continue to grow in the years to come. In this big-data era, we envision that tomorrow's security technologies will be data-centric: new defense will become smart and proactive by using the data to understand what the attackers have already done, what they are about to do, what their strategies and infrastructures are; effective protection will be provided for dissemination and analysis of the data involving sensitive information on an unprecedented scale. In this talk, I report our first step toward this future of secure computing. We show that through effective analysis of over a million Android apps, previously unknown malware can be detected within a few seconds, without resorting to conventional Anti-Virus means such as signatures and behavior patterns. Also, by leveraging trillions of web pages indexed by search engines, we can capture tens of thousands of compromised websites (including those of government agencies like NIH, NSF and leading education institutions world-wide) by simply asking Google and Bing right questions and automatically analyzing their answers through Natural Language Processing. Further, we found that an in-depth understanding about the unique features of human genomes and how they are used in biomedical research and healthcare systems can help us find a highly efficient way to protect patient privacy during a large-scale genome analysis. Our findings indicate that by unlocking the great value of data, we can revolutionize the security landscape, making tomorrow security technologies more intelligent and effective.
Biography: Dr. XiaoFeng Wang is a professor in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University, Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004, and has since been a faculty member at IU. Dr. Wang is a well-recognized researcher on system and network security. His work focuses on cloud and mobile security, and data privacy. He is a recipient of 2011 Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (the PET Award) and the Best Practical Paper Award at the 32nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. His work frequently receives attention from media, including CNN, MSNBC, Slashdot, CNet, PC World, etc. Examples include his discovery of security-critical vulnerabilities in payment API integrations (http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/13/technology/ecommerce_security_flaw/) and his recent study of the security flaws on the Apple platform (http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/18/technology/apple-keychain-passwords/). His research is supported by the NIH, NSF, Department of Homeland Security, the Air Force and Microsoft Research. He is the director of IU's Center for Security Informatics.
Host: CS Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 136
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computational Imaging for Real-Time Gigapixel and 3D Wave-Field Microscopy
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Lei Tian, Postdoctoral Associate / Dept of EECS, University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Computational Imaging for Real-Time Gigapixel and 3D Wave-Field Microscopy
Abstract: Abstract: Computational imaging is a new frontier of imaging technology that overcomes fundamental limitations of conventional systems by jointly designing optics, devices, signal processing, and algorithms. In this talk, I will present recent advancements in computational wave-field imaging that enable Gigapixel and 3D phase microscopy capability, breaking the limit of space-time-bandwidth product in traditional systems. In particular, I will describe a computational microscopy platform that implements coded illumination and nonlinear phase retrieval algorithms to reconstruct wide field-of-view and high-resolution phase images. Further, new illumination multiplexing techniques reduce data requirements by one order of magnitude, and acquisition times from minutes to sub-second. Experiments demonstrate quantitative dynamic imaging of rare biological events across multiple scales in both space and time. Finally, new 3D wave-optical model and reconstruction technique allow Gigavoxel reconstruction of 3D objects, achieving lateral resolution and depth sectioning well beyond the physical limit of traditional systems. Such computational imaging approach creates significant new capabilities by integrating hardware and computation at the system level. It promises wide applications, such as biomedicine, metrology, inspection, security and X-ray.
Biography: Bio: Lei Tian is a postdoctoral associate in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 and M.S. in 2010, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests include computational imaging, computational-optical instrumentation, phase retrieval, imaging through 3D complex media, large-scale microscopy, and their applications in biomedicine, security, metrology, inspection, X-ray and EUV.
Dr. Tian is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed articles and is a named inventor on 3 US patent applications. His recent work on coded illumination for Gigapixel imaging was awarded the Best Paper in Optical Society of America (OSA) Imaging Systems and Applications conference (2014). His work on optical coherence recovery using low-rank method was awarded the Emil Wolf Best Student Paper in OSA Frontier in Optics annual meeting (2011). Dr. Tian is currently serving as conference chair and program committee member in multiple conferences of OSA, SPIE, and IEEE.
Host: Dr. Justin Haldar, jhaldar@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 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
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Na Li, Harvard University
Talk Title: Distributed Energy Management with Limited Communication
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: A major issue in future smart grid is how intelligent devices and independent producers can respectively change their power consumption/production to achieve near maximum efficiency for the power network. Limited communications between devices, producers etc. necessitates an approach where the elements of the network can act in an autonomous manner with limited information/communications yet achieve near optimal performance. In this talk, I will present our recent work on distributed energy management with limited communication. In particular, I will show how we can extract information from physical measurements and recover information from local computation. We will investigate the minimum amount of communication for achieving the optimal energy management and study how limited communication affects the convergence rate of the distributed algorithms.
Biography: Na Li is an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Harvard University since 2014. She received her PhD degree in Control and Dynamical systems from California Institute of Technology in 2013 and was a postdoctoral associate of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research lies in the design, analysis, optimization and control of distributed network systems, with particular applications to power networks. She received NSF career award (2016) and entered the Best Student Paper Award ï¬nalist in the 2011 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.
Host: Prof. Ashutosh Nayyar
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Janna Nawroth, Postdoctoral Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Talk Title: Multiscale Fluid Sensing and Transport in Biological and Engineered Systems
Abstract: Deformable substrates mediate fluid transport and sensing in many biological systems (e.g., marine animals, inner organs), as well as in some engineered systems (soft microfluidics, soft robots). The latter, however, employ only a fraction of the multitude of mechanisms found in nature. Partly, this reflects the difficulty of isolating straightforward structure-function relationships in multiscale biological tissues that could be translated to engineered materials. The same difficulty has impeded the development of in vitro assays and diagnostics tools for (fluid-) mechanically mediated diseases, such as polycystic kidney syndrome, hearing loss, osteoporosis, and cardiomyopathy. I approach this challenge by studying native and engineered tissues specialized for a particular transport function, which enables me to isolate, quantify, and reverse-engineer selected structure-function relationships. For this, I combine the powers of flow visualization, microfluidic platforms, tissue engineering, and computational studies. Here, I will present major results and goals of my research including (1), quantifying the structure-function relationships of muscle and cilia in health and disease, with applications in biophysical studies, diagnostics, and drug discovery ("organs-on-chips"); (2), designing and building cell-based microfluidic analyzers and processors; and (3), developing biologically-inspired multiscale surfaces for controlling dynamic fluid-structure interactions, such as biofilm formation.
Biography: Janna C. Nawroth is a postdoctoral Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. She attended Heidelberg University, Germany, where she received her B.S. (2004) and M.S. (2007) in Biotechnology. For her master thesis, Nawroth joined Yale University as a research associate in computational biology with Professor Gordon Shepherd. After Yale, Nawroth attended the California Institute of Technology as a Moore Fellow and obtained her Ph.D. (2012) in Biology. Nawroth's Ph.D. research, with Professor John Dabiri, received Caltech's award for the Best Thesis in Nanotechnology and involved the study and design of muscle-powered pumps to manage microfluidic propulsion and particle transport. After her Ph.D., Nawroth spent a year as a Caltech Postdoctoral Fellow in Aeronautics collaborating with Professors John Dabiri, Eva Kanso (USC), Scott Fraser (USC), and Margaret-McFall-Ngai (U Hawaii) to study transport phenomena in ciliated surfaces. At the Wyss, she develops microfluidic devices and signal processing algorithms for exploring the mechanics and flow physics of dynamic tissues for applications in biomedical engineering, disease modeling, and biophysical research.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 115
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
In & Out: 30 Minutes to Identify Internships & Jobs Still Available!
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 05:00 PM - 05:03 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Learn about resources on Viterbi Gateway for job opportunities that are still available!
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Viterbi Spotlight Series: Aerospace, Mechanical, and Astronautical Engineering
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Students will hear from alumni regarding their academic and professional experiences.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Viterbi Undergraduate Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Inferring Network Internal State via Network Tomography
Thu, Mar 10, 2016 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Ting He, IBM
Talk Title: Inferring Network Internal State via Network Tomography
Abstract: Timely and accurate knowledge of network internal state (e.g., delay/loss/jitter on links) is essential to efficient network operation and resource allocation. Obtaining such knowledge is, however, a highly nontrivial task in large-scale heterogeneous networks, where the existence of heterogeneous domains due to the difference in communication technology, protocol, ownership, and/or policy makes it difficult for a single monitoring system to receive global support throughout the network.
In this talk, I will review a promising approach for monitoring such networks by inferring the internal network state (e.g., link delay) from end-to-end measurements (e.g., path delay) taken between monitors, known as network tomography. The focus will be given to a key challenge in applying network tomography, called "lack of identifiability", i.e., the measurements cannot uniquely determine the network state. In contrast to previous works that resort to best-effort heuristics, I aim at guaranteeing identifiability via carefully designed measurements. Specifically, I (i) establish the fundamental condition on the network topology and monitor placement to achieve identifiability, (ii) develop the optimal monitor placement algorithm that guarantees identifiability using a minimum number of monitors, (iii) develop an efficient path construction algorithm that finds a set of linearly independent paths, whose measurements can uniquely determine the link metrics, and (iv) design probing experiments that allocate probes among the paths to minimize the error in estimating link parameters in the case of random link metrics. The above results are selected from publications at ICDCS'13, IMC'13, TON'14, and SIGMETRICS'15, and have won several best paper awards and nomination.
Biography: Ting He is a Research Staff Member at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where she has worked for over 8 years in the Wireless Network Research Group and the Network Analytics Research Group. Before that, she was a Graduate Research Assistant at the Adaptive Communications and Signal Processing Group at Cornell University in 2003-2007, where she received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering.
At IBM, Dr. He has worked as a primary researcher and task lead in several major research programs including the International Technology Alliance (ITA) program funded by US ARL and UK MoD, the Measurement Science in Cloud Computing program funded by NIST, and the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program funded by DARPA. Her work aims at applying mathematical principles developed in signal processing, graph theory, information theory, stochastic optimization, and online learning to practical problems arising in the broad areas of network monitoring, performance analysis, and optimization.
Dr. He is a senior member of IEEE. She has served as the Membership Co-chair of ACM N2Women and the TPC of many communications and networking conferences, including IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE SECON, IEEE/ACM IWQoS, IEEE WiOpt, IEEE MILCOM, IEEE ICNC, IFIP Networking, etc. She received the Outstanding Contributor Award from IBM Research in 2009 and 2013, and the Most Collaboratively Complete Publications Award from ITA in 2015. Her papers won the Best Paper Award at IEEE ICDCS'13, the Outstanding Student Paper Award at ACM SIGMETRICS'15, the Best Paper Nomminee at ACM IMC'13, and the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE ICASSP'05. She received the Distinguished TPC Member Award for her service at IEEE INFOCOM'16. In school, she was an Outstanding College Graduate of Beijing and and an Outstanding Gradudate of Peking University in 2003, and a winner of the Excellent Student Awards and scholarships from Peking University from 1999 to 2002.
Host: Professor Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Theodore Low
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
LinkedIn for Engineers: How to Get Recruited by Top Companies
Thu, Mar 10, 2016 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
If you're struggling with using LinkedIn as an engineer, come learn from our LinkedIn Campus Editor how to leverage the profile as a Viterbi student. Learn to create a profile and network dedicated to your specific needs and technical skills.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - SGM 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
The Pulmonary Challenge: Innovations in Lung Development, Stem Cells and Regeneration
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 08:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: various, various
Talk Title: various
Abstract: The Hastings Center for Pulmonary Research (HCPR) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC presents an inaugural symposium at the University of Southern California's Health Sciences Campus located in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, March 11, 2016.
Host: Hastings Center for Pulmonary Research (HCPR)
More Info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-pulmonary-challenge-innovations-in-lung-development-stem-cells-regeneration-tickets-19893233196
Location: Harlyne J. Norris Research Tower (NRT) - Aresty Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
USC CCMB Symposium
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 05:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: various, various
Talk Title: various
Abstract: "Head formation in mouse: Attributes of the gene regulatory network," Patrick Tam, Children's Medical Research Institute, University of Sydney
"Dental pulp mesenchymal stem cells in tooth growth," Paul Sharpe, Craniofacial Development and Stem Cell Biology, King's College London
"Epithelial-mesenchymal interactions during tooth development," Irma Thesleff, Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki
"Using next generation sequencing to define monogenic causes of craniosynostosis," Andrew Wilke, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
Host: Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology (CCMB)
More Info: http://ccmbsymposium.usc.edu/
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
Event Link: http://ccmbsymposium.usc.edu/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
PhD Seminar
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Evangelos Pantazis, PhD Candidate, University of Southern California
Talk Title: A design methodology framework at the intersection of Architecture, Engineering and construction using Multi-Agent Systems
Abstract: This talk will review research on the prototyping of multi-agent systems (MAS) for architectural design. It proposes a design exploration methodology at the intersection of architecture, engineering, and construction. The motivation of the work includes exploring bottom up generative methods coupled with optimizing performance criteria including geometric complexity and objective functions for environmental, structural and fabrication parameters. The work focuses on the development of a design methodology and initial experiments to provide design solutions, which simultaneously satisfy complexly coupled and often contradicting objectives.
The prototypical experiments vary in complexity and focus on different design domains, namely: a) facade design, and the development of non structural building component (facade panels) that is adjusted based on the environmental performance of the facade b) shell design; and the development of structural building component (reciprocal frames) for form finding actual construction of lightweight shell structures using digital and robotic fabrication.
The developed system and algorithms are described, and initial results of the multi-agent derived efficiencies are presented
Biography: Evangelos Pantazis is currently pursuing a PhD at the Viterbi School of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California. Evangelos holds a Masters of Advanced studies in the field of Computer Aided Architectural Design from the ETH in Zurich (2012). He received his Diploma in Architecture with honors from Aristotles University of Thessaloniki (2010), and has also graduated from the MOKUME jewelry design school in 2007, where he was trained as a jeweler.
Professionally, Evangelos has gained experience in several international offices, including Graft in Berlin, Germany, Melhado Architectes in Londrina, Brasil and Studio Pei Zhu in Beijing/China. Soon after, he co-founded Topotheque design office, a studio that focuses on computational design with its various tangent disciplines such architecture, product deisgn and graphic and plastic art. His latest work is focusing on non-linear design strategies for architectural and design purposes, their integration with performance analyses and their materialization using digital fabrication.
Host: Burcin Becerik-Gerber
Location: 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kaela Berry
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program Colloquium
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 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 Joshua Giegel, from Hyperloop Technologies, titled "21st Century Transportation."
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 123
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ramon Borunda/Academic Services
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Munushian Seminar - Mark Lundstrom, Friday, March 11th at 2:00pm in EEB 132
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mark Lundstrom, Purdue University
Talk Title: Electrons and Phonons in Nanodevices
Abstract: The theory of electron transport in semiconductors has developed, evolved, and matured alongside the development of semiconductor technology from microelectronics to nanoelectronics. The field of thermal transport has an even longer history beginning with Fourier's Law, but electrons and phonons always go together - sometimes it is a problem, as in the self-heating of electronic devices, and sometimes it is the whole point, as in thermoelectrics. My goal in this talk is to discuss the remarkably simple conceptual picture of electron transport at the nanoscale that has emerged from decades of work on experiments and sophisticated transport theory and simulations and to explore its application to thermal transport. Two central concepts are the Landauer approach and the McKelvey-Shockley two-flux form of the Boltzmann equation. I'll discuss the similarities and differences of electron and phonon transport and some new insights into thermal transport that come from using concepts from electronics. Finally, I'll identify some issues that need to be addressed if we are to develop the comprehensive conceptual and computational framework for electrothermal transport that is needed to describe modern nanodevices.
Biography: Mark Lundstrom is the Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He received Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1980 and BEE and MSEE degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1973 and 1974. Between his MSEE and Ph.D. degrees, he worked at Hewlett-Packard Corporation on integrated circuit process development and manufacturing. At Purdue, his research has explored a wide range of semiconductor devices, the physics of carrier transport, and the modeling and numerical simulation of devices. His current focus is on energy conversion devices such as solar cells and thermoelectric devices and on the physics of the ultimate transistor. Lundstrom was the founding director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology and nanoHUB.org, a science gateway that now serves a worldwide nanotechnology community of more than 300,000 individuals. He currently leads NEEDS, an NSF and industry-funded, multi-university initiative focused on new-era electronics, and he leads the nanoHUB-U initiative for on-line education. Dr. Lundstrom is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has received several awards for his teaching and research, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar-Extracting Biomolecular Interactions Using Semantic Parsing of Biomedical Text
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sahil Garg, USC/ISI
Talk Title: Extracting Biomolecular Interactions Using Semantic Parsing of Biomedical Text
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: We advance the state of the art in biomolecular interaction extraction with three contributions: (i) We show that deep, Abstract Meaning Representations (AMR) significantly improve the accuracy of a biomolecular interaction extraction system when compared to a baseline that relies solely on surface- and syntax-based features; (ii) In contrast with previous approaches that infer relations on a sentence-by-sentence basis, we expand our framework to enable consistent predictions over sets of sentences (documents); (iii) We further modify and expand a graph kernel learning framework to enable concurrent exploitation of automatically induced AMR (semantic) and dependency structure (syntactic) representations. Our experiments show that our approach yields interaction extraction systems that are more robust in environments where there is a significant mismatch between training and test conditions.
Biography: Sahil Garg is a PhD student, advised by Prof. Aram Galstyan, in computer science department of Viterbi school of engineering at University of Southern California. He is interested in problem oriented research. In the past, he developed machine learning, information theoretic algorithms for real world problems such as sensing environmental dynamics using mobile robotic sensors. In this talk, he is going to discuss his recent work on extracting bio-molecular interactions from bio-medical text using semantic parsing, especially in relevance to Cancer disease.
Host: Xing Shi and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
USC Energy Institute Seminar
Fri, Mar 11, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. David Brown, ARPA-E Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy
Talk Title: How Can Technology Enable Greenhouse Gas Mitigation through Agriculture?
Host: USC Energy Institute
More Information: USCEI 2016 Seminar Series 031116.pdf
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 105
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Juli Legat
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
