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Events for the 3rd week of August

  • AME Seminar

    Sun, Aug 11, 2019 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Eckart Meiburg, UC Santa Barbara

    Talk Title: Settling of Cohesive Sediment: Particle resolved Simulations

    Abstract: We develop a physical and computational model for performing fully coupled, grain resolving Direct Numerical Simulations of cohesive sediment, based on the Immersed Boundary Method. The model distributes the cohesive forces over a thin shell surrounding each particle, thereby allowing for the spatial and temporal resolution of the cohesive forces during particle to particle interactions.

    We test and validate the cohesive force model for binary particle interactions in the Drafting-Kissing-Tumbling aka DKT configuration. Cohesive sediment grains can remain attached to each other during the tumbling phase following the initial collision, thereby giving rise to the formation of flocs. The DKT simulations demonstrate that cohesive particle pairs settle in a preferred orientation, with particles of very different sizes preferentially aligning themselves in the vertical direction, so that the smaller particle is drafted in the wake of the larger one. This preferred orientation of cohesive particle pairs is found to remain influential for much larger simulations of 1,261 polydisperse particles released from rest. These simulations reproduce several earlier experimental observations by other authors, such as the accelerated settling of sand and silt particles due to particle bonding, the stratification of cohesive sediment deposits, and the consolidation process of the deposit. This final phase also shows the build-up of cohesive and direct contact intergranular stresses. The simulations demonstrate that cohesive forces accelerate the overall settling process primarily because smaller grains attach to larger ones and settle in their wakes. An investigation of the energy budget shows that the work of the collision forces substantially modifies the relevant energy conversion processes.

    Biography: Eckart Meiburg received his Ph.D. from the University of Karlsruhe. After a postdoc at Stanford, he became an assistant professor in applied mathematics at Brown. He then moved to USC as associate then full professor. He later moved to UC Santa Barbara.

    His research interests are fluid dynamics and transport phenomena, primarily computational fluid dynamics. He uses highly resolved direct numerical simulations to investigate physical mechanisms governing the spatio temporal evolution of a wide variety of geophysical, porous media, and multiphase flow fields. Some of his current interests are gravity and turbidity currents, Hele-Shaw displacements, double diffusive phenomena in particle laden flows, and internal bores.

    Meiburg has received a Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Humboldt Senior Research Award, and a Senior Gledden Fellowship Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia. He is fellow of the American Physical Society and the ASME, was the 2012 Lorenz G. Straub Award Keynote Speaker at Univ. Minn., gave the Ronald F. Probstein Lecture at MIT in 2018, and was Shimizu Visiting Professor at Stanford University.

    Host: Bermejo-Moreno

    Location: SLH 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Tessa Yao

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Mon, Aug 12, 2019

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS juniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • PhD Orientation

    Tue, Aug 13, 2019 @ 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Doctoral Programs

    Receptions & Special Events


    Welcome to our new Viterbi PhD students! Orientation for all new Viterbi PhD students will take place on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 from 9:00am-12:00pm. New students will have an opportunity to meet faculty and staff from their academic departments, as well as other new students in their cohort. A continental breakfast will be provided, followed by sessions with faculty, DPS, and Student Counseling. RSVP required.

    Location: Epstein Family Plaza

    Audiences: New Ph.D. Students

    Contact: Jennifer Gerson

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Wed, Aug 14, 2019

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS juniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • MS - Group Advisement

    Thu, Aug 15, 2019 @ 10:00 AM - 11:40 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This group advisement session is for graduate students in the Computer Science / Informatics Master's programs. All incoming Fall 2019 students are encouraged to attend at least one session. One-on-one time with advisors will be available toward the end of the group advisement session. Appointments are not required to attend this session.

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Graduate

    Contact: Art Perez

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  • NL Seminar-COMPREHENSIBLE CONTEXT-DRIVEN TEXT GAME PLAYING

    Thu, Aug 15, 2019 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Xusen Yin, USC/ISI

    Talk Title: COMPREHENSIBLE CONTEXT-DRIVEN TEXT GAME PLAYING

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: In order to train a computer agent to play a text based computer game, we must represent each hidden state of the game. A Long Short Term Memory LSTM model running over observed texts is a common choice for state construction. However, a normal Deep Q learning Network DQN for such an agent requires millions of steps of training or more to converge. As such, an LSTM based DQN can take tens of days to finish the training process. Though we can use a Convolutional Neural Network CNN as a text encoder to construct states much faster than the LSTM, doing so without an understanding of the syntactic context of the words being analyzed can slow convergence. In this paper, we use a fast CNN to encode position and syntax-oriented structures extracted from observed texts as states. We additionally augment the reward signal in a universal and practical manner. Together, we show that our improvements can not only speed up the process by one order of magnitude but also learn a superior agent.



    Biography: Xusen Yin is a 3rd-year Ph.D. student in USC ISI, advised by Dr. Jonathan May.

    Host: Xusen Yin and Jon May

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

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

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - CR #689

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

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

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  • MS - Group Advisement Session

    Thu, Aug 15, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:40 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This group advisement session is for graduate students in the Computer Science / Informatics Master's programs. All incoming Fall 2019 students are encouraged to attend at least one session. One-on-one time with advisors will be available toward the end of the group advisement session. Appointments are not required to attend this session.

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Graduate

    Contact: Art Perez

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  • Repeating EventMeet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, and Engineering Talk

    Fri, Aug 16, 2019

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen (HS juniors and younger) and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process, a student led walking tour of campus, and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. During the engineering session we will discuss the curriculum, research opportunities, hands-on projects, entrepreneurial support programs, and other aspects of the engineering school. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process, and financial aid.

    Reservations are required for Meet USC. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m.

    Please make sure to check availability and register online for the session you wish to attend. Also, remember to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!

    RSVP

    Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - USC Admission Office

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

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    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • MS - Group Advisement Session

    Fri, Aug 16, 2019 @ 10:00 AM - 11:40 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This group advisement session is for graduate students in the Computer Science / Informatics Master's programs. All incoming Fall 2019 students are encouraged to attend at least one session. One-on-one time with advisors will be available toward the end of the group advisement session. Appointments are not required to attend this session.

    Location: Mark Taper Hall Of Humanities (THH) - 201

    Audiences: Graduate

    Contact: Art Perez

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  • MS - Group Advisement

    Fri, Aug 16, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:40 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Workshops & Infosessions


    This group advisement session is for graduate students in the Computer Science / Informatics Master's programs. All incoming Fall 2019 students are encouraged to attend at least one session. One-on-one time with advisors will be available toward the end of the group advisement session. Appointments are not required to attend this session.

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Graduate

    Contact: Art Perez

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