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Events for the 2nd week of November

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

    Mon, Nov 06, 2017

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen 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: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 06, 2017 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Amir Ahmadi (alumnus, USC BME MS program), Manufacturing Process Engineer, Abbott Laboratories

    Talk Title: From the Classroom to the Cleanroom -“ Life as an engineer in the medical device industry

    Host: Stacey Finley, PhD

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering

    Mon, Nov 06, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jordan Berg, National Science Foundation

    Talk Title: Dynamics, Controls, and Robotics Programs at NSF: a Biased Perspective

    Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series

    Abstract: This talk will present several programs in the area of dynamics, control, and robotics at NSF. Dr. Berg is a Program Officer in the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation in the NSF Engineering Directorate, where he co-directs the Dynamics, Control, and System Diagnostics program. He was the original director of the CMMI Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus (M3X) program, and he is a Program Director for the National Robotics Initiative (NRI-2.0). Dr. Berg will discuss funding opportunities in these programs, as well as in the new CMMI LEAP-HI program. The talk will provide some general guidelines for choosing between NSF programs in the dynamics, controls, and robotics areas, and will include ample time for Q&A.

    Biography: Jordan M. Berg received the BSE and MSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 1981 and 1984. He worked in the Attitude Control Analysis group at RCA Astro-Electronics in East Windsor, NJ, from 1983 to 1986. He received the PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, and the MS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Drexel University in 1992. He has held postdoctoral appointments at the USAF Wright Laboratory in Dayton, OH, and the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications in Minneapolis, MN. Since 1996 he has been at Texas Tech University, where he is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Co-Director of the Nano Tech Center. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2008 he held visiting faculty appointments at the University of Ruhuna and University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. He is a Professional Engineer in the State of Texas and a Fellow of the ASME. In 2014 he was appointed a Program Director for the Sensors, Dynamics, and Controls (SDC) program in the Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division of the Engineering (ENG) Directorate at the National Science Foundation, where he is currently serving as an IPA rotator. His current research interests include nonlinear and geometric control, soft robotics, human-machine systems, and the modeling, simulation, design, and control of nano- and micro-systems.


    Host: Mihailo Jovanovic

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering

    Tue, Nov 07, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Francesco Bullo, University of California, Santa Barbara

    Talk Title: Network Systems and Kuramoto Oscillators

    Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series

    Abstract: Network systems are mathematical models for the study of cooperation,
    propagation, synchronization and other dynamical phenomena that arise
    among interconnected agents. Network systems are widespread in science
    as fundamental modeling tools. They also play a key growing role in
    technology, e.g., in the design of power grids, cooperative robotic
    behaviors and distributed computing algorithms. Their study pervades
    applied mathematics.

    This talk will review established and emerging frameworks for
    modeling, analysis and design of network systems. I will survey the
    available comprehensive theory for linear network systems and then
    highlight selected nonlinear concepts. Next, I will focus on recent
    developments on the analysis of security and transmission capacity in
    power grids. I will review the Kuramoto model of coupled oscillators
    and present recent results on its synchronization behavior.

    Biography: Francesco Bullo is a Professor with the Mechanical
    Engineering Department and the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems
    and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was
    previously associated with the University of Padova, the California
    Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois. His research
    interests focus on network systems and distributed control with
    application to robotic coordination, power grids and social
    networks. He is the coauthor of "Geometric Control of Mechanical
    Systems" (Springer, 2004) and "Distributed Control of Robotic
    Networks" (Princeton, 2009); his forthcoming "Lectures on Network
    Systems" is available on his website. He received best paper awards
    for his work in IEEE Control Systems, Automatica, SIAM Journal on
    Control and Optimization, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems,
    and IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems. He is a Fellow of
    IEEE and IFAC. He has served on the editorial boards of IEEE, SIAM,
    and ESAIM journals, and will serve as IEEE CSS President in 2018.

    Host: Ketan Savla, ksavla@usc.edu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • Epstein Institute Seminar, ISE 651

    Tue, Nov 07, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Daniel Bienstock, Professor, Columbia University

    Talk Title: Using Robust Optimization to Incorporate Renewables in Electric Power Generation

    Host: Prof. Jong-Shi Pang

    More Information: November 7, 2017.pdf

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Grace Owh

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  • CS Colloquium: Danqi Chen (Stanford) - From Reading Comprehension to Open-Domain Question Answering

    Tue, Nov 07, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Danqi Chen, Stanford

    Talk Title: From Reading Comprehension to Open-Domain Question Answering

    Series: CS Colloquium

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


    Enabling a computer to understand a document so that it can answer comprehension questions is a central, yet unsolved, goal of NLP. This task of reading comprehension (i.e., question answering over a passage of text) has received a resurgence of interest, due to the creation of large-scale datasets and well-designed neural network models.
    I will talk about how we build simple and effective models for advancing a machine's ability at reading comprehension. I'll focus on explaining the logical structure behind these neural architectures and discussing the capacities of these models as well as their limits.

    Next I'll talk about how we combine state-of-the-art reading comprehension systems with traditional IR components to build a new generation of open-domain question answering systems. Our system is much simpler than traditional QA systems and able to answer questions efficiently over the full English Wikipedia and shows great promise on multiple QA benchmarks.


    Biography: Danqi Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University, advised by Christopher Manning. She works on deep learning for natural language processing, and is particularly interested in the intersection between text understanding and knowledge representation/reasoning. Her research spans from machine comprehension/question answering to knowledge base construction and syntactic parsing, with an emphasis on building principled yet highly effective models. She is a recipient of a Facebook Fellowship, a Microsoft Research Women's Fellowship and outstanding paper awards at ACL'16 and EMNLP'17. Previously, she received her B.S. with honors from Tsinghua University in 2012.


    Host: Fei Sha

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Find More Jobs & Internships: Viterbi Career Gateway Workshop

    Tue, Nov 07, 2017 @ 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


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

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

    Audiences: All Viterbi Students

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen 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: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Urs von Gunten,

    Talk Title: TBA

    Abstract: TBA

    Location: TBA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Pavithra Prabhakar, Associate Professor, Kansas State University

    Talk Title: Formal Verification of Robustness Properties of Cyber-Physical Systems

    Abstract: Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) consist of complex systems that combine control, computation and communication to achieve sophisticated functionalities as in autonomous driving in driverless cars and automated load balancing in smart grids. The safety criticality of these systems demands strong guarantees about their correct functioning. Formal verification is an area of computer science that deals with rigorous and automated methods for correctness analysis based on mathematical models of systems and correctness specifications. In this talk, we present an overview of our work on formal verification techniques for cyber-physical systems analysis using the framework of hybrid systems. Hybrid systems capture an important feature of CPSs, namely, mixed discrete-continuous behaviors that arise due to the interaction of complex digital control software (discrete elements) with physical systems (continuous elements).

    We will focus on the formal verification of a fundamental property in control design, namely, stability. Stability is a robustness property that capture notions such as small perturbations to the initial state or input to a system result in only small variations in the behavior of the system. We will present a novel algorithmic approach to stability analysis based on model-checking and abstraction-refinement techniques. We highlight the technical challenges in the development of an algorithmic framework for stability analysis owing to the robustness aspect. We will present experimental results using our tool AVERIST (Algorithmic VERifier for STability), that illustrate the practical benefits of the algorithmic approach as compared to well-known deductive methods for automated verification of stability based on Lyapunov functions. Finally, we will present some future research directions including automated design of hybrid control systems and formal analysis of hybrid systems in the presence of uncertainties.


    Biography: Pavithra Prabhakar is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Peggy and Gary Edwards Chair in Engineering at the Kansas State University. She obtained her doctorate in Computer Science and a masters in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed by a CMI postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. Her main research interest is in formal analysis of cyber-physical systems with emphasis on both foundational and practical aspects related to automated and scalable techniques for verification and synthesis of hybrid systems. She is the recipient of a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the EU, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.

    Host: Paul Bogdan

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Estela Lopez

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  • Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering Seminar

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: James J. Riley, PACCAR Professor of Engineering, University of Washington

    Talk Title: The Effects of Stable Density Stratification Initially Homogeneous, Isotropic Turbulence

    Abstract: Stable density stratification occurs in various situations in the atmosphere and in the oceans. For example, in the atmosphere stable density stratification is found near the tropopause and above, and often in nocturnal boundary layers, while in the oceans it usually is observed below the mixed layer. And, through its effects on turbulent mixing, stable stratification has relevance to a number of important issues such as the overall ocean thermal energy balance and the transfer rates of heat and chemicals to/from the atmosphere.

    In this seminar the results are presented of a study of the effects of stable density stratification on the simplest of turbulent flows, initially homogeneous, isotropic turbulence, using direct numerical simulations. Simulations were carried out at an initially moderate Froude number, but for a range of initial Reynolds numbers such that, for the high Reynolds number cases, the flows had buoyancy Reynolds numbers in the hundreds, similar to typical oceanic values. A number of aspects of the flows have been addressed, including their energetics, the behavior of various velocity and length scales describing the flows, their mixing characteristics, and their spectral behavior. In particular, how the behavior of the flows depend on the local Froude and buoyancy Reynolds numbers is emphasized. It is found, for example, that as the flows decay, stratification modifies them such that, compared to non-stratified cases, the energy decay rates decreased, the growth rate of the horizontal scales increased, while the growth rates of the vertical scales became negative. These results are consistent with the analysis of Davidson (J. Fluid Mech., 2010), based upon the behavior of the effects of density stratification on the large-scale motions. On the other hand if the buoyancy Reynolds number becomes too low, then the flows, especially the vertical velocity, begin to decay much more rapidly. It is also found, for example, that the behavior of the spectra of the velocity gradient tensor is consistent with the heuristic arguments of Lilly (J. Atmos. Sci., 1983) and the scaling arguments of Billant & Chomaz (Phys. Fluids, 2001). Finally, previous results of the USC group (e.g., Spedding J. Fluid Mech., 1997) are interpreted in terms of the Froude and buoyancy Reynolds numbers.

    Biography: James J. Riley is the PACCAR Professor of Engineering at the University of Washington. He received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in 1972, having worked under the guidance of Stanley Corrsin. After a year as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, he spent ten years in industry at Flow Research Company in Kent, Washington, ultimately as the Director of the Fluid Mechanics Division. He joined the University of Washington in 1983, where he is now a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and an Adjunct Professor in both the Departments of Applied Mathematics and of Aeronautics and Astronautics. While on sabbatical at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, Riley occupied the Visiting Chair in Industrial Mathematics. More recently he was a Senior Fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute for the Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University. Riley's research interests have included particle dispersion in turbulent flows, waves and turbulence in stably-stratified and in rotating fluids, boundary layer and shear layer transition and turbulence, fluid/compliant surface interactions, and chemically reacting turbulent flows. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and of the Journal of Turbulence, and until recently was a member of the editorial boards of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics and of the Applied Mechanics Reviews. Riley is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.

    Host: Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ashleen Knutsen

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  • ITP Distinguished Speaker Series - November 8th

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017 @ 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM

    Information Technology Program (ITP)

    Receptions & Special Events


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Information Technology Program (ITP) is proud to present the ITP Distinguished Speaker Series. Each month, the program will host a distinguished industry professional to speak to USC students, faculty, and staff about many and varied topics that encompass what it means to work in an Information Technology field.

    Please join us in November for Facilitating Innovation, an engaging workshop with USC Graduate Professor and international award-winning keynote speaker, SASHA STRAUSS.

    Sprinkles cupcakes reception to follow!

    Details:

    Wed, November 8, 2017
    6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
    Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) 101

    Speaker Bio:

    SASHA STRAUSS is an international authority on brand strategy. Corporations, non-profits, universities, and faiths call on Sasha and his team to create and communicate organizational purpose for startups to Fortune 100s.

    In 2006, Sasha founded Innovation Protocol, a brand consultancy headquartered in Los Angeles, with staff in San Francisco and New York. Clients range from Google, Disney, and Amgen, to the Roman Catholic Church, Homeboy Industries and the Boy Scouts.

    A renowned international keynote speaker, Sasha has been the lead presenter at some of the world's largest conferences, and has record high satisfaction ratings from Vistage, YPO, Tiger21, and EO audiences. As a graduate professor for 11 years, Sasha is directly engaged with the most decisive consumer minds of the era, and uses their fresh insights to inform his latest speaking engagements.

    For full event information and RSVP, please see our event link: RSVP HERE

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

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: Alexandra Slakter

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  • ISE Alumni & Industry Spotlight

    Wed, Nov 08, 2017 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Students will hear from alumni and industry professionals regarding their academic/professional experiences.

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

    Audiences: Undergrad

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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  • CS Colloquium: Li Xiong (Emory University) - Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing and Analytics with Differential Privacy

    Thu, Nov 09, 2017 @ 01:30 PM - 02:50 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Li Xiong, Emory University

    Talk Title: Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing and Analytics with Differential Privacy

    Abstract: While Big Data promises significant value, it also raises increasing privacy concerns. In this talk, I will describe our efforts towards a comprehensive privacy-preserving data sharing and analytics framework. Following an overview of the framework, we discuss two settings based on state-of-the-art differential privacy techniques: 1) aggregated data sharing for data mining and analytics, and 2) individual location sharing for location based services. For aggregated sharing, I will present several technical solutions for handing different types of data including sequential and time series data, using medical and spatiotemporal data mining applications. For individual data sharing, I will present our approach towards a rigorous and customizable privacy notion extending the differential privacy framework for location protection, with location based applications such as nearest POI search and geospatial crowdsourcing.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium. Please note, due to limited capacity in SOS B2, seats will be first come first serve.


    Biography: Li Xiong is Professor of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics at Emory University and holds a Winship Distinguished Research Professorship. She has a PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, an MS from Johns Hopkins University, and a BS from University of Science and Technology of China, all in Computer Science. She and her research group, Assured Information Management and Sharing (AIMS), conduct research that addresses both fundamental and applied questions at the interface of data privacy and security, spatiotemporal data management, and health informatics. She has published over 100 papers in premier journals and conferences including TKDE, JAMIA, VLDB, ICDE, CCS, and WWW, and has received four best paper awards. She currently serves as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE) and on numerous program committees for data management and data security conferences. She is a recipient of a Google Research Award, IBM Smarter Healthcare Faculty Innovation Award, Cisco Research Award, and Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Her research is supported by NSF (National Science Foundation), NIH (National Institute of Health), AFOSR (Air Force Office of Scientific Research), and PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute).

    Host: Muhammad Naveed

    Location: Social Sciences Building (SOS) - B2

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Refraction Networking: Censorship Circumvention in the Core of the Internet

    Thu, Nov 09, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Nikita Borisov , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Talk Title: Refraction Networking: Censorship Circumvention in the Core of the Internet

    Abstract: Internet users around the world are facing censorship. To access blocked websites, they use circumvention services that most commonly consist VPN-like proxies. The censors, in turn, try to block such proxies, creating a sort of cat-and-mouse game. Refraction networking takes a different approach by placing refracting routers inside ISP networks. By spending a special signal, a user can ask a router to refract *any* connection that transits the ISP to another, blocked destination, in a process that is undetectable by the censor. To prevent such connections, the censor would need to block all traffic from reaching that ISP, which considerably raises the cost of censorship.

    I will discuss the design of refraction networking and how it achieves the properties above. I will also discuss the results of our a pilot deployment of refraction networking two ISPs handling an aggregate of nearly 100 Mbps traffic, which provided censorship circumvention to 50,000 users in a country with heavy Internet censorship. I will close by discussing some future research issues in the space.

    Biography: Nikita Borisov is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research is interests are online privacy and network security, with recent work on anonymous communication, censorship resistance, analysis of encrypted traffic, and protocols for secure communication. He is the co-designer of the Off-the-Record (OTR) instant messaging protocol and was responsible for the first public analysis of 802.11 security. He has been the chair of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium and the ACM Workshop on Privacy in Electronic Society. He is also the recipient of the NSF CAREER award. Prof. Borisov received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005 and a B.Math from the University of Waterloo in 1998.

    Host: Xuehai Qian, x04459, xuehai.qian@usc.edu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • CS Colloquium: Jimmy Ba (University of Toronto) - Progress and Challenges in Training Neural Networks

    Thu, Nov 09, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jimmy Ba, University of Toronto

    Talk Title: Progress and Challenges in Training Neural Networks

    Series: Visa Research Machine Learning Seminar Series hosted by USC Machine Learning Center

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

    Optimization lies at the core of any deep learning systems. In this talk, I will first discuss the recent advances in optimization algorithms to train deep learning models. Then I will present a novel family of 2nd-order optimization algorithms that leverage distributed computing to significantly shortening the training time of neural networks with tens of millions of parameters. The talk will conclude by showing how our algorithms can be successfully applied to domains such as reinforcement learning and generative adversarial networks.


    Biography: Jimmy is finishing his PhD with Geoff Hinton in the Machine Learning group at the University of Toronto. Jimmy will be a Computational Fellow at MIT before returning as full-time faculty to the CS department at UofT, as well as joining the Vector Institute. Jimmy completed his BAc, MSc at UofT working with Brendan Frey and Ruslan Salakhutdinov. He has previously spent time at Google Deepmind and Microsoft Research, and is a recipient of Facebook Graduate Fellowship for 2016 in machine learning. His primary research interests are in the areas of artificial intelligence, neural networks, and numerical optimization.


    Host: Yan Liu

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar

    Thu, Nov 09, 2017 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Urs von Gunten, The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

    Talk Title: Enhanced Municipal Wastewater Treatment for Micropollutant Abatement by Ozone

    Host: Sonny Astani Department

    More Information: Seminar Announcement 11_9_17.pdf

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Kaela Berry

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  • CAIS Seminar: Dr. John Clapp (University of Southern California) - A Systems Dynamic Approach to Understanding Heavy Drinking Events: Measures, Methods and Models

    Thu, Nov 09, 2017 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. John Clapp, University of Southern California

    Talk Title: A Systems Dynamic Approach to Understanding Heavy Drinking Events: Measures, Methods and Models

    Series: Center for AI in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series

    Abstract: Dr. Clapp will discuss a collaborative modeling effort among a team of engineers and social scientists to better understand the complex dynamics underlying heavy drinking at the event level. The goal of this ongoing effort is to develop invivo smart interventions aimed at changing problematic drinking trajectories to prevent event level problems including alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, and sexual assault. His presentation will cover the collaborative modeling effort, computation models, and validation measures and methods. The current state of the models and next steps will be discussed.

    Biography: Dr. Clapp is Executive Vice Dean and Professor in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. His work has focused largely on the etiology and prevention of acute alcohol-related problems.

    Host: Milind Tambe

    Location: Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall (of Philosophy) (MHP) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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

    Fri, Nov 10, 2017

    Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission

    Receptions & Special Events


    This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen 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: Prospective Freshmen & Family Members

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Admission

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  • W.V.T. RUSCH ENGINEERING HONORS COLLOQUIUM

    Fri, Nov 10, 2017 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Rosanna Smart, Associate Economist at RAND Corporation

    Talk Title: The Many Impacts of Marijuana

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Su Stevens

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  • PhD Defense - Charith Wickramaarachchi

    Fri, Nov 10, 2017 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    University Calendar


    Dynamic Graph Analytics for Cyber Systems Security Applications
    Ph.D. candidate: Charith Wickramaarachchi
    Friday, November 10, 2017
    1:00PM, SAL 322
    Abstract:
    State of the art cyber systems are becoming an organic part of our day to day life with the advancement of internet infrastructure, mobile technologies, and sensor networks. As a result, protecting cyber systems against attacks has become a task of vital importance. However, the highly complex nature of modern cyber systems makes designing of security solutions a challenging task. The mission-critical nature of these systems demands low latency solutions that identify and prevent attacks.
    Graphs are fundamental in representing complex interconnected systems and data. Thus, graph representation based security solutions will play a crucial role in future cyber systems security solutions. We propose a set of fundamental dynamic graph algorithms that can be used to develop cyber systems security solutions.
    First, we present distributed dynamic graph algorithms that can be used to prevent attacks on cyber systems. We develop distributed algorithms to monitor vertices in a dynamic network to detect if they become a part of a given graph pattern. Evaluations on a diverse set of real-world datasets demonstrate that ~99% savings in computation and communication is achieved by the proposed algorithms compared with state of the art.
    Next, to provide high accuracy subgraph pattern matching in dynamic networks, we present a distributed algorithm for exact subgraph matching (i.e., subgraph isomorphism). To improve the latency and scalability of the solution, we propose a lossless distributed graph pruning technique based on graph simulation. Evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed method is highly effective on small-world graphs.
    Finally, we present a set of dynamic Steiner tree based protection schemes to address a security vulnerability in the smart grid state estimation process. The proposed protection schemes consider the dynamic nature of the criticality of buses in power transmission networks to provide optimal cost protection recommendations. We develop scalable, highly accurate heuristic algorithms to obtain security recommendations with low latency.
    Biography:
    Charith Wickramaarachchi received the BSc (Hons) degree (2010) in Computer Science and Engineering from University of Moratuwa and the MS degree (2016) in Computer Science from University of Southern California. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Computer Science at University of Southern California. His research interests are in the areas of large-scale graph processing and data stream processing in distributed environments such as Clouds. He is a member of IEEE, an elected committer and a project management committee member of Apache Software Foundation.
    Defense Committee: Viktor K. Prasanna (chair), Rajgopal Kannan, Aiichiro Nakano, Cauligi Raghavendra

    Location: 322

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Lizsl De Leon

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Fri, Nov 10, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ho Sung Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Neurology

    Talk Title: TBA

    Abstract: TBA

    Biography: My research spans an interdisciplinary cross-section of Medical Image Processing, Machine learning and Neuroscience covering clinical neurology and neuropsychiatry. In the fields of medical image processing and analysis, I have studied on multicontrast image registration and segmentation, surface modeling of cortical/subcortical structures which are the prerequisite techniques to proceed the analysis of structural and functional brain imaging studies.
    My projects that has been recently launched at USC-INI and USC-LONI include mainly two domains of the research field: 1) Prediction of neurodevelopmental outcome in neonates with various clinical conditions such as preterm birth, hypoxia-ischemia and congenital heart disease: This project rapidly expands in line with my team's expertise of neurodevelopment, neuroimaging, computational imaging feature modeling and machine learning (particularly DEEP learning); 2) Neuroimaging data quality controls (image QC): My team dedicates its efforts to implementation of online-based LONI-QC system that allows the public to evaluate their own data as well as to automated QC feature that will ultimately predict the accuracy of brain image post-processing and the sensitivity in the subsequently biological / clinical analysis to given target pathophysiology.
    In clinical / neuroscientific applications, my team has applied various advanced analytic frameworks, including cortical morphometry, voxel-based morphometry, deformation-based morphometry and structural network analysis, to assessment of brain structure in healthy conditions as well as pathological conditions, which often present anatomical variations beyond the range of normal structures.
    My team continues to expand aforementioned techniques to the analysis of BIG DATA of brain imaging data of patients with various diseases and disorders such as stroke, epilepsy, dementia and sleep disorders.

    Host: Brent Liu, PhD

    More Information: hosungkim.jpg

    Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 145A

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • NL Seminar-On Real-Time Graph Transducers

    Fri, Nov 10, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Anssi Yli-Jyrä , Univ of Helsinki

    Talk Title: On Real-Time Graph Transducers

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Finite computers and universal computers. Often a practical solution combines both of these two extremes because formally powerful models are simulated by physical machines that approximate them. This is especially true for recurrent neural networks whose activation vector is the key to deeper understanding of their emergent finite state behavior. However, we currently have only a very loose characterization for the finite-state property in neural networks. In order to construct a hypothesis for a possible bottom up organization of the state space of activation vectors of RNNs, I compare neural networks with bounded Turing machines and finite state machines, and quote recent results on finite state models for semantic graphs. These models enjoy the nice closure properties of weighted finite state machines. In the end of the talk, I sketch my vision for neural networks that perform finite state graph transductions in real time. Such transductions would have a vast variety of applications in machine translation and semantic information retrieval involving big data.



    Biography: Anssi Yli Jyrä has the titles of Adjunct Professor Docent in Language Technology at the University of Helsinki and Life Member of Clare Hall College at the University of Cambridge. He is currently a PI and a Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland in a project concerning universality of finite state syntax. He has published a handbook on Hebrew and Greek morpheme alignments in the Finnish Bible translation together with a group of Digital Humanists, and then served the Finnish Electronic Library at CSC IT Centre of Science where he built an internet harvester and a search engine for the Finnish WWW. In 2005, he earned his PhD from the University of Helsinki and then worked as a coordinator for the Language Bank of Finland at CSC. There he contributed to pushing his employer to what is now known as the CLARIN European Research Infrastructure Consortium. He became the first President of SIGFSM in 2009, after fostering and organizing FSMNLP conferences for several years. In 2012-2013, he served as a Subject Head of Language Technology in his home university before visiting the Speech Group at the Department of Engineering, Cambridge University. He has supervised theses and contributed to the theoretical basis of Helsinki Finite State Transducer HFST library. In his own research, Yli Jyrä constantly pursues unexplored areas, applying finite-state transducers to graphical language processing tasks such as autosegmental phonology, constraint interaction, and dependency syntax and neural semantics. He is a qualified teacher and interested in the occurrence of flow in agile programming and simultaneous translation.


    Host: Marjan Ghazvininejad 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/

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