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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for the 3rd week of September
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Sep 12, 2016 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Terry Sanger, MD, USC BME, Neurology, Biokinesiology Faculty, Dir Pediatric Movement Disorders Center
Talk Title: TBA
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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EE 598 Cyber-Physical Systems Seminar Series
Mon, Sep 12, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yasser Shoukry, Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA/UC Berkeley /UPenn
Talk Title: Secure State Estimation For Cyber Physical Systems Under Sensor Attacks: A Satisfiability Modulo Theory Approach
Abstract: Motivated by the need to secure critical infrastructure against sensor attacks, in this talk I will focus on a problem known as "secure state estimation". It consists of estimating the state of a dynamical system when a subset of its sensors is arbitrarily corrupted by an adversary. Although of critical importance, this problem is combinatorial in nature since the subset of attacked sensors in unknown. Previous work in this area can be classified into two broad categories. The first category is based on numerical optimization techniques. These techniques are well suited to handle the continuous part of the problem, estimating the real-valued variable describing the state, if the combinatorial part of the problem has been solved. The second category is based on Boolean reasoning, which is well suited to handle the combinatorial part of the problem, if the continuous part of the problem has been solved. However, since we need to simultaneously solve the combinatorial and the continuous part of the secure state estimation problem, the existing approaches result in algorithms with worst case exponential time complexity.
In this talk, I will present a novel and efficient algorithm for the secure state estimation problem that uses the lazy SMT approach in order to combine the power of both SAT solving as well as convex optimization. While SAT solving is used to perform the combinatorial search, convex optimization techniques are used to reason more efficiently about the real-valued state of the system and/or generating theory lemmas explaining conflicts in the combinatorial search. We show that by splitting the reasoning between the two domains (Booleans and Reals) and intermixing a powerful tool from each domain, we obtain a new suite of tools that scales more favorably compared to the previous techniques. I will start by discussing the simplest case when the underlying dynamics are linear, sensors are perfect (noiseless), and only data collected over a finite window is considered. I will then move forward by showing several extensions to handle noisy measurements, recursive implementations (data over infinite windows) and nonlinear dynamics.
Biography: Yasser Shoukry is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the EECS Department at UC Berkeley, the EE Department at UCLA and the ESE Department at UPenn. He received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA in 2015 where he was affiliated with both the Cyber-Physical Systems Lab as well as the Networked and Embedded Systems Lab. Before joining UCLA, he spent four years as an R&D engineer in the industry of automotive embedded systems. His research interests include the design and implementation of secure- and privacy- aware cyber-physical systems by drawing on tools from embedded systems, control and optimization theory, and formal methods.
Dr. Shoukry is the recipient of the Best Paper Award from the International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS) in 2016. He is also the recipient of the UCLA EE Distinguished PhD Dissertation Award in 2016, the UCLA Chancellor's prize in 2011 and 2012, UCLA EE Graduate Division Fellowship in 2011 and 2012, and the UCLA EE Preliminary Exam Fellowship in 2012. In 2015, Dr. Shoukry led the UCLA/Caltech/CMU team to win the first place in the NSF Early Career Investigators (NSF-ECI) research challenge. His team represented the NSF-ECI in the NIST Global Cities Technology Challenge, an initiative designed to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Professor Emeritus Michael Arbib: A Remarkable Trajectory - 55 Years of Brains, Machines and Mathematics
Mon, Sep 12, 2016 @ 03:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Emeritus Michael Arbib, USC
Talk Title: A Remarkable Trajectory - 55 Years of Brains, Machines and Mathematics
Series: CS Keynote Series
Abstract: In honor and celebration of his retirement and 30 years of service at USC, the Viterbi School of Engineering invites Michael A. Arbib to be the inaugural speaker in this series, to share the trajectory of his remarkable career.
To attend, please RSVP by September 5th online at USC.EDU/ESVP (code: arbib). For questions, please contact Cristina Fong, Computer Science Department: 13.821.2981 - cristinf@usc.edu
Biography: The thrust of Michael Arbib's work is expressed in the title of his first book, Brains, Machines and Mathematics (McGraw-Hill, 1964). The brain is not a computer in the current technological sense, but he has based his career on the argument that we can learn much about machines from studying brains, and much about brains from studying machines. He has thus always worked for an interdisciplinary environment in which computer scientists and engineers can talk to neuroscientists and cognitive scientists.
His primary research focus is on the coordination of perception and action. This is tackled at two levels: via schema theory, which is applicable both in top-down analyses of brain function and human cognition as well as in studies of machine vision and robotics; and through the detailed analysis of neural networks, working closely with the experimental findings of neuroscientists on humans and monkeys. He is also engaged in research on the evolution of brain mechanisms for human language, pursuing the Mirror System Hypothesis that links language parity (the fact that what the speaker intends is roughly what the hearer understands) to the properties of the mirror system for grasping -- neurons active for both the execution and observation of actions -- to explain (amongst many other things) why human brains can acquire sign language as readily as speech.
A new interest is working with architects to better understand the neuroscience of the architectural experience and to develop a new field of neuromorphic architecture, "brains for buildings".
The author or editor of almost 40 books, Arbib has most recently edited "Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot" (with Jean-Marc Fellous, Oxford University Press, 2005) and "From Action to Language via the Mirror System" (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Host: CS Department
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Registration Required
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Boeing Info Session
Mon, Sep 12, 2016 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
More information to come
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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USC Stem Cell Seminar: Keith Mostov, University of California, San Francisco
Tue, Sep 13, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Keith Mostov, University of California, San Francisco
Talk Title: A molecular switch for the orientation of epithelial cell polarization
Series: Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC Distinguished Speakers Series
Abstract: The formation of epithelial tissues containing lumens requires not only the apical-basolateral polarization of cells, but also the coordinated orientation of this polarity such that the apical surfaces of neighboring cells all point towards the central lumen. I will describe a molecular switch mechanism controlling polarity orientation. Inhibition of this switch mechanism results in the development instead of collective front-rear polarization and motility.
Host: Andy McMahon
More Info: http://stemcell.usc.edu/events
Webcast: http://keckmedia.usc.edu/stem-cell-seminarWebCast 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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ISE 651 Epstein Institute Seminar
Tue, Sep 13, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tapas Das, Ph.D., University of South Florida
Talk Title: Upgrading Electric Power Market Infrastructure via Dynamic Pricing and Demand Response
Abstract: Both practitioners and researchers agree that both pricing and demand must play much more proactive roles in better balancing demand of electricity across the hours of a day. A balanced system will reduce the menace of demand and price spikes, routinely experienced by the power networks, and thus reduce the need for expensive reserve generation capacity as well. However, proactive management of pricing and demand would require a more upgraded power market infrastructure than what is currently in place in the U.S. Fortunately, increasing availability of advanced metering and power network infrastructure supported by the Internet of energy IoE will soon pave the way for the desired upgrade. This will facilitate dynamic pricing of electricity by system operators and intelligent demand response by load schedulers (controllers) in smart and connected consumer communities. A dynamic pricing strategy will offer binding prices for each time interval (perhaps, hourly) to the consumer nodes before loads are scheduled. This strategy will replace the current practice of time of use (TOU) pricing. In response to dynamic pricing, the smart communities will optimize their load schedule for all remaining time intervals of the day, as well as manage the use of renewable power generated by the communities.
However, implementing effective dynamic pricing and demand response strategies remains a significant challenge, as models necessary to design such strategies have not been developed and made available for use. This talk outlines the challenge and our approach to address it.
Biography: -“ Tapas K. Das is a professor and chair of the department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at the University of South Florida. He is a past chair of the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Departments Heads (CIEADH), Fellow of IISE, and members of INFORMS and IEEE. His research interest includes policy studies in electric power markets (impact of CO2 emissions control policies on the market, incentive strategies for promoting net zero building, and dynamic pricing and demand response in IoE supported power market) as well as in disease diagnosis and treatment strategies in healthcare delivery.
Host: Dr. Jong-Shi Pang
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Angela Reneau
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Viterbi Progressive Degree Program Info Session
Tue, Sep 13, 2016 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Graduate Admission, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Workshops & Infosessions
Interested in earning your MS from Viterbi? How about starting a MS degree during your senior year? The Viterbi Graduate Admission team is hosting a Progressive Degree information session!
What are the details?
When: Wednesday, September 13th
Where: RTH 211
Who should attend?
All undergraduate students thinking about pursuing a MS degree through USC.
What is the Progressive Degree Program?
The Progressive Degree Program (PDP) gives continuing USC undergraduates another path to earning a Master's degree from USC. The main advantages to a Progressive Degree are:
1) Start graduate-level classes during your senior year
2) Reduce the units required for a Master's Degree
Where can you learn more?
More Progressive Degree information may be found by attending our information session and visiting http://viterbiundergrad.usc.edu/future/pdp/
Questions? Email the Viterbi Graduate Admission team at: viterbi.pdp@usc.eduLocation: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Monica Graduate Admission
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Future of Energy
Tue, Sep 13, 2016 @ 05:30 PM - 07:30 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Workshops & Infosessions
How do we power a brighter future around the Globe?
Join us for a discussion about careers in the energy industry.More Information: energy.jpeg
Location: Annenberg School For Communication (ASC) - Wallis Annenber Hall Forum / Lobby
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Andreas Tillmann
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OnPrem Solution Partners Info Session
Tue, Sep 13, 2016 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Information Session for OnPrem Solution Partners. OnPrem Solution Partners is a consulting and technology innovation firm focused in on the media and entertainment industry. Founded in 2013 by four consulting industry leaders in Southern California, we work with some of the most innovative companies in the world including major studios, large broadcasters, and leading technology companies. OnPrem's focus on top talent, company culture, and creating the next generation consulting firm makes it an exciting place to work for anyone with an entrepreneurial mindset. We differentiate ourselves by being experts in our fields. We are relentlessly good at what we do, will always put our clients first, and we only hire passionate, forward thinking, intelligent, and personable people.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Sep 14, 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
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Viterbi Career Conference
Wed, Sep 14, 2016 @ 01:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBD, TBD
Talk Title: Viterbi Career Conference
Abstract: The Viterbi Career Conference, designed specifically for Viterbi undergraduates, takes place once each fall. The conference provides an invaluable opportunity for all students, freshmen through seniors, to develop job search skills and to connect with company representatives and alumni.
Host: Viterbi Career Connections
More Info: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/careers/students/experience/career-conference.php
Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Grand Ballroom
Audiences: All Viterbi Undergraduate Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
Event Link: http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/careers/students/experience/career-conference.php
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Biotechnology Lecture SeriesThu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Various, Amgen
Talk Title: R&D Insights from Lab Bench to Patient Bedside
Abstract: USC researchers have the opportunity to gain research and development insights with a new biotechnology lecture series sponsored by Amgen and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC.
The weekly lecture series, "R&D Insights from Lab Bench to Patient Bedside" takes place Thursdays at 10:30AM-12:00PM at USC's Health Sciences Campus from September 1, 2016 through November 10, 2016.
The talks will feature Amgen scientists speaking about:
Identifying a possible therapeutic target and its role in disease
Increasing therapeutic efficacy and safety
Process development, devices and manufacturing
Case studies from bench to clinic
Lectures will take place at the BCC First Floor Seminar Room or ZNI Herklotz Seminar Room.
RSVP at http://www.usc.edu/esvp (use code: amgenlecture). Space is limited. Preference will be given to SCRM master's students, PhDs, and postdocs, and attending all lectures is mandatory.
Please contact qliumich@usc.edu or karenw03@amgen.com for further details.
Host: USC Stem Cell/Amgen
More Info: https://calendar.usc.edu/event/biotechnology_lecture_series_rd_insights_from_lab_bench_to_patient_bedside?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=USC+Event+Calendar#.V8dKNLX8vW4
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Cristy Lytal/USC Stem Cell
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AI SEMINAR
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rudi Studer, Institutes AIFB/KSRI, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany & FZI Research Center for Information Technology at KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
Talk Title: Flexible Management of Event Processing Applications for the (Industrial) Internet of Things
Series: AI Seminar
Abstract: Gathering and processing events from cyber-physical systems provides users with the opportunity to continuously be aware of current performance indicators and potentially upcoming issues as well as to optimize production and maintenance processes. In this context, Event Processing has become an established technology to process high-frequency event streams in real-time while providing capabilities to detect event patterns based on spatial, temporal or causal relationships.
However, although event processing applications are often highly dynamic in regard to oftentimes changing requirements of observed situations as well as frequent syntactic and semantic changes of incoming sensor data, current technologies still suffer from high technical complexity making the development of real-time applications a time-consuming task due to slow development cycles.
In this talk, we discuss methods and tools supporting the management of event processing applications. We present a lightweight, semantics-based model to describe event sources such as sensors, event processing agents and consumers and an approach that enables application specialists to define and execute event processing pipelines in a self-service manner. The approach is illustrated based on two IoT scenarios: integrated monitoring of manufacturing processes and disruption management in supply chains. In the beginning, selected research activities at Institutes AIFB and KSRI at KIT as well as at FZI will be outlined.
Biography: Bio:
Rudi Studer is Full Professor in Applied Informatics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute AIFB. In addition, he is director at the Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI) as well as at the FZI Research Center for Information Technology at KIT. His research interests include knowledge management, Semantic Web technologies and applications, data and text mining, Big Data and Service Science.
He obtained a Diploma in Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart in 1975. In 1982 he was awarded a Doctor's degree in Informatics at the University of Stuttgart, and in 1985 he obtained his Habilitation in Informatics at the University of Stuttgart. From 1985 to 1989 he was project leader and manager at the Scientific Center of IBM Germany.
He is involved in various national and international research projects, among others the EU projects XLime (crossLingual crossMedia Knowledge Extraction) and iVision (Immersive Semantics-based Virtual Environments for the Design and Validation of Human-centered Aircraft Cockpits).
Rudi Studer is former president of the Semantic Web Science Association (SWSA) and former Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web. He is a Semantic Technologies Institute (STI) International Fellow.
Host: Craig Knoblock
Webcast: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/33a9588370b74466825f95063e27108e1dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 1135 - 11th fl Large CR
WebCast Link: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/33a9588370b74466825f95063e27108e1d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Alma Nava / Information Sciences Institute
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Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 12:45 PM - 01:50 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jay Guo, University of Michigan
Talk Title: Structural colors, metasurfaces, and ultrasonics by light interaction with nanostructures
Series: Distinguished Lecture
Host: Professor Jongseung Yoon
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Martin Olekszyk
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EE Seminar
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Terence D. Sanger, MD PhD, Depts of Biomedical Engineering, Biokinesiology, and Child Neurology/USC
Talk Title: A Bayesian nonlinear filter and a stochastic nonlinear control algorithm suitable for estimation and control by populations of spiking neurons
Abstract: The best-known examples of Bayesian nonlinear filters are the Kushner and Zakai equations which unfortunately have limited applicability to important classes of real-world problems. I derive a general nonlinear filter with broad applicability that can be shown to integrate to Bayes' rule over short time intervals. The filter extracts maximal information per unit time, in the sense that the rate of decrease of the entropy of the estimate is equal to the mutual information between the state and the observation. I show that this filter has a straightforward parallel implementation, and I show an efficient representation using Poisson-distributed spiking neurons.
I then show that this technique can be extended to a class of stochastic nonlinear controllers. These controllers extend linear feedback controllers and permit control of systems with non-Gaussian noise or state uncertainty, asymmetric cost or perturbations, or state measurements that are not characterized by additive Gaussian noise. The theory is based on Stochastic Dynamic Operators (SDOs) in which the fundamental signals used for feedback are not estimates of state, but estimates of the probability distribution of state. This allows control to vary depending on the degree of state uncertainty (eg: one might drive more slowly if visibility is poor). The reference signal used for control is not a desired time-varying reference state, but a time-varying cost function that assign a value to every potential state. Such cost functions can represent asymmetric penalties and discontinuities in cost (eg: a cliff to one side of a road). Feedback control uses Bayesian statistics to combine the uncertain state estimate (from a nonlinear filter) and the time-varying cost function to produce an estimated motor command. The command is the solution to a short-term optimization problem. As with the Bayesian nonlinear filter, populations of spiking neurons provide a good representation for SDOs and an efficient control algorithm. I will show a real-time implementation of a feedback controller for a desktop robot arm using a population of 900 simulated spiking neurons that tracks the desired minimum cost and stably resists perturbations.
Biography: Terry Sanger holds an SM in Applied mathematics (Harvard), PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (MIT), and MD (Harvard), with medical specialization in Child Neurology and Movement Disorders. He is currently Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Neurology, and Biokinesiology, and he is the director of the Pediatric Movement Disorders Clinic at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, and the Health Technology and Engineering program at USC (HTE@USC).
His research on disorders of developmental motor control is driven by his interest in finding new treatments for children with movement disorders including dystonia, chorea, spasticity, and dyspraxia. He has a particular interest in computational motor learning, and the role of motor learning in recovery from childhood brain injury. Major focus areas of laboratory research include wearable devices to promote motor learning, EMG-driven communication devices and assistive prosthetics, and modeling of the electrophysiology of deep-brain stimulation. Personal involvement in motor control and motor learning includes snowboarding, jazz and classical piano, bluegrass banjo, and ballroom dance with particular focus on Argentine Tango.
Host: Professor Sandeep K. Gupta, sandeep@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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EE 598 Computer Engineering Seminar
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rajiv Gupta, University of California, Riverside
Talk Title: Parallel Graph Processing on GPUs, Clusters, and Multicores
Abstract: The importance of iterative graph algorithms has grown due to their widespread use in graph mining and analytics. Although computations on graphs with millions of nodes and edges contain vast amounts of data level parallelism, exploiting this parallelism is challenging due to the highly irregular nature of real-world graphs. In this talk I will present our recent results that greatly improve the SIMD-efficiency, communication efficiency, and I/O efficiency of graph processing on GPUs, a cluster, and a single multicore machine. In comparison to prior techniques, our Warp Segmentation technique achieves 1.3x-2.8x performance improvement on a single GPU, our Vertex Refinement technique achieves 2.7x performance improvement on a multi-GPU system, our Relaxed Consistency protocol achieves 2.3x performance improvement on a 16-node cluster, and our Dynamic Shards I/O optimization achieves up to 2.8x performance improvement on a single multicore machine.
Biography: Rajiv is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Riverside. His research interests include Compilers, Architectures, and Runtimes for Parallel Systems. He has supervised PhD dissertations of 28 students including two winners of ACM SIGPLAN Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. Papers coauthored by Rajiv with his students have been selected for: inclusion in 20 Years of PLDI (1979-1999), a best paper award in PACT 2010, and a distinguished paper award in ICSE 2003. Rajiv is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and AAAS. He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award and UCR Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentor Award. He has chaired several major conferences including FCRC, PLDI, HPCA, ASPLOS, CGO, CC, HiPEAC, and LCTES. He serves on the Editorial Boards of ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization and Parallel Computing journal. Rajiv served as a member of a technical advisory group on networking and information technology created by the PCAST.
Host: Xuehai Qian
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - OHE 100D
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Navigating U.S. Recruitment Process
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
This workshop will provide students tips on how to navigate the process of U.S. corporate recruiting and will touch on American culture norms.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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Google Info Session
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Google's main tech talk for the fall -- come here from Google engineers about working at Google!
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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NOBE General Body Meeting #1
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
The National Organization for Business and Engineering (NOBE), is a national society uniting business, management and engineering organizations from universities coast to coast. NOBE strives to produce and refine leadership internally and develop professional skills in our members that can be translated into success in the business world.
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Our first General Body Meeting is THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th at Fertitta Hall (JFF) 236 at 6 PM. Please RSVP using this Facebook Event link and invite any friend that may be interested, they can register during the meeting!
We will be introducing the current E-Board and talking about our event plans for the coming semester.
We always try to make NOBE as useful to our members as possible, so please show up to the meeting if you would like to suggest events or have any ideas of what you would like to see.
If your friends want to sign up, please direct them to this link so they can be added to the mailing list:
https://goo.gl/forms/QDksA3jK4coNzd7s1More Information: Flyer One Page.pdf
Location: JFF 236
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: USC NOBE
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Google Info Session
Thu, Sep 15, 2016 @ 07:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Google's main tech talk for the fall -- come here from Google engineers about working at Google!
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: All Viterbi
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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Welcome and Welcome Back MFD Students Lunch!
Fri, Sep 16, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Student Activity
Location: EQUAD
Audiences: MFD STUDENTS ONLY!
Contact: Martin Olekszyk
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NL Seminar-Efficient Exploration for Dialog Policy Learning with BBQ Networks & Replay Buffer Spiking
Fri, Sep 16, 2016 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Zachary Lipton, UCSD
Talk Title: Efficient Exploration for Dialog Policy Learning with BBQ Networks & Replay Buffer Spiking
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: When rewards are sparse and efficient exploration essential, deep Q learning with e greedy exploration tends to fail. This poses problems for otherwise promising domains such as task oriented dialog systems, where the primary reward signal, indicating successful completion, typically occurs only at the end of each episode but depends on the entire sequence of utterances. A poor agent encounters such successful dialogs rarely, and a random agent may never stumble upon a successful outcome in reasonable time. We present two techniques that significantly improve the efficiency of exploration for deep Q learning agents in dialog systems. First, we demonstrate that exploration by Thompson sampling, using Monte Carlo samples from a Bayes by Backprop neural network, yields marked improvement over standard DQNs with Boltzmann or e greedy exploration. Second, we show that spiking the replay buffer with a small number of successes, as are easy to harvest for dialog tasks, can make Q learning feasible when it might otherwise fail catastrophically.
Biography: I am a graduate student in the Artificial Intelligence Group at the University of California, San Diego on leave for two quarters at Microsoft Research Redmond. I work on machine learning, focusing on deep learning methods and applications. In particular, I work on modeling sequential data with recurrent neural networks and sequential decision-making processes with deep reinforcement learning. I'm especially interested in research impacting medicine and natural language processing. Recently, in Learning to Diagnose with LSTM RNNs, we trained LSTM RNNs to accurately predict patient diagnoses using only lightly processed time series of sensor readings in the pediatric ICU. Before coming to UCSD, I completed a Bachelor of Arts with a joint major in Mathematics and Economics at Columbia University. Then, I worked in New York City as a jazz musician. I have interned with Amazon's Core Machine Learning team and Microsoft Research's Deep Learning Team.
Host: Xing Shi and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Floor -CR # 689; ISI-Marina del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Munushian Visiting Seminar Series
Fri, Sep 16, 2016 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Grant Willson, Rashid Engineering Regent Chair, UT Austin
Talk Title: Polymers for High Resolution Imaging Applications
Series: Munushian Seminar Series
Abstract: There has been a continuing and nearly frantic effort on the part of the microelectronics manufacturers over the past
several decades to make smaller and smaller devices. Companies that cannot keep pace with these advances quickly disappear
from the market place and sadly many with famous names like Siemens, Motorola and Sony have fallen by the wayside.
Photolithography, the process that has enabled the production of all of today's microelectronic devices has now reached physical
limits. Efforts to push that technology to provide still higher resolution by the historical paths of exposure wave length reduction,
increasing the numerical aperture of the projection lens and reduction in the Raleigh constant have been abandoned. Is this the
end? Can device scaling continue??
Various incredibly clever tricks based on chemical engineering principles have been devised that extend the resolution limits of
photolithography, some of which are already in use in full scale manufacturing. One promising approach for future generations
of devices is based on the "directed self-assembly" of block co-polymers. We have worked to design block co-polymers that are
optimized for this application. Doing so requires incorporation of blocks with very high interaction parameters (X) and for some
applications, incorporation of silicon into one of the blocks. Polymers of this sort form very small structures. We have now
demonstrated well resolved 50 Angstrom wide lines and spaces. Aligning the structures and orienting them in a way that is useful
for microelectronics is a challenge as is development of processes for transfer of such small patterns into substrates that are useful
for device fabrication. A progress report on these efforts will be presented.
Biography: Dr. Grant Willson is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the
University of Texas at Austin where he holds the Rashid Engineering Regent's Chair. He received both his B.S. and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.S., in organic chemistry, from San Diego State University. He joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. Prior to joining the university, Dr. Willson worked at IBM for 17 years as an IBM Fellow and Manager of the Polymer Science and Technology area at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA. He joined IBM after serving on the faculties of California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Willson is the co-inventor
of more than 40 issues U.S. patents and co-author of more than 400 publications.
Dr. Willson's research work is focused on the design and synthesis of functional organic materials with emphasis on organic materials for microelectronics. His work is supported by grants from both government and industry. His research group includes graduate and undergraduate students
enrolled in both the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Departments. He was a cofounder of Molecular Imprints, Inc., an Austin firm that employed more than 100 people and was very recently acquired by Canon.
Host: EE Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
