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Events for April 28, 2017
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AI Seminar
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Avi Pfeffer, Charles River Analytics
Talk Title: PROGRAMMING: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Abstract: Probabilistic reasoning lets you predict the future, infer past causes of current observations, and learn from experience. It can be hard to implement a probabilistic application because you have to implement the representation, inference, and learning algorithms. Probabilistic programming makes this much easier by providing an expressive language to represent models as well as inference and learning algorithms that automatically apply to models written in the language. In this talk, I will present the past, present, and future of probabilistic programming and our Figaro probabilistic programming system. I will start with the motivation for probabilistic programming and Figaro. After presenting some basic Figaro concepts, I will introduce several applications we have been developing at Charles River Analytics using Figaro. Finally, I will describe our future vision of providing a probabilistic programming tool that domain experts with no machine learning knowledge can use. In particular, I will present a new inference method that is designed to work well on a wide variety of problems with no user configuration. Prior knowledge of machine learning is not required to follow the talk.
Biography: Dr. Avi Pfeffer is Chief Scientist at Charles River Analytics. Dr. Pfeffer is a leading researcher on a variety of computational intelligence techniques including probabilistic reasoning, machine learning, and computational game theory. Dr. Pfeffer has developed numerous innovative probabilistic representation and reasoning frameworks, such as probabilistic programming, which enables the development of probabilistic models using the full power of programming languages, and statistical relational learning, which provides the ability to combine probabilistic and relational reasoning. He is the lead developer of Charles River Analytics Figaro probabilistic programming language. As an Associate Professor at Harvard, he developed IBAL, the first general-purpose probabilistic programming language. While at Harvard, he also produced systems for representing, reasoning about, and learning the beliefs, preferences, and decision making strategies of people in strategic situations. Prior to joining Harvard, he invented object-oriented Bayesian networks and probabilistic relational models, which form the foundation of the field of statistical relational learning. Dr. Pfeffer serves as Action Editor of the Journal of Machine Learning Research and served as Associate Editor of Artificial Intelligence Journal and as Program Chair of the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence. He has published many journals and conference articles and is the author of a text on probabilistic programming. Dr. Pfeffer received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and his B.A. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Host: Craig Knoblock
More Info: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/9b1644b4150f48cabdccf208f55773a51d
Location: 11th floor large conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
Event Link: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/9b1644b4150f48cabdccf208f55773a51d
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Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Samir Mitragotri , Mellichamp Chair Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara
Talk Title: TBA
Series: Systems Cellular-Molecular Bioengineering Distinguished Speaker Series
Abstract: TBA
Biography: Professor Mitragotri is the Founding Director of Center for BioEngineering (CBE). CBE is a hub for research and teaching at the interface of biology, engineering and physical sciences and enables transition of fundamental scientific discoveries to applications in medicine and biotechnology. Research at the CBE is yielding important advances in the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of common and devastating diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and macular degeneration.
Host: Eun Ji Chung, PhD
Location: Corwin D. Denney Research Center (DRB) - 146
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Senior Design Expo
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 02:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
The 9th annual Viterbi Senior Design Expo showcases the design projects that are completed in senior capstone engineering courses. The projects are often presented within the class, but rarely to other students, staff, faculty and industry partners. The Senior Design Expo is an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of Viterbi graduating seniors!
Location: VHE Breezeway
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Vazquez-Akim
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Calogero Benedetto Rizzo and Mohammed Abdelbarr, Astani CEE Graduate Students
Talk Title: A Systematic Investigation of Hydraulic Connectivity in Heterogeneous Porous Media and its Impact on Transport Dynamics
Abstract: Defining the level of connectivity of heterogeneous porous media is of key importance to understand subsurface flow and transport dynamics. Several studies show that non-Fickian behavior observed in solute spreading in heterogeneous subsurface formations are strictly related to the presence of preferential channels. The presence of these channels control the trajectory of the solute front leading edge of the plume and it is highly correlated to early arrival times. Nevertheless there are multiple metric and frameworks that allow to determine preferential channels and connectivity properties of a complex heterogeneous permeability field. The aim of this work is to understand connectivity properties by using the concept of least resistance path through the use of an efficient algorithm. We explore differences among a range of fields and analyze the factors that significantly affect the connectivity of the field and its impact on transport. The results help to further understand the impact of hydraulic connectivity on solute transport and to establish a criteria for which heterogeneity and preferential channels cannot be neglected.
Talk by Mohamed Abdelbarr
Title: Inexpensive and Contactless Color and Depth Data Fusion for Dynamic Displacement-Field Measurement
Abstract:
Quantitative and accurate measurements concerning the time history of the multi-component deformation field of a distributed system undergoing dynamic response is an important and challenging problem in the broad field of structural dynamics. There are only very limited, and relatively quite expensive, methodologies for obtaining multi component deformations of a displacement of a dynamically deformation field. This study presents an extensive analytical and experimental study to assess, implement, and evaluate the feasibility and performance of a class of inexpensive vision based sensors RGB-D sensors to acquire dynamic measurements of the displacement field of a test structure.
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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NL Seminar-Modeling Dialog using Probabilistic Programs
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andreas Stuhlmuller , Stanford Univ.
Talk Title: Modeling Dialog Using Probabilistic Programs
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: How can we effectively explore the space of automated dialog systems? In this talk, I introduce WebPPL, a probabilistic programming language that provides a wide range of inference and optimization algorithms out of the box. This language makes it easy to express and combine probabilistic models, including regression and categorization models, highly structured cognitive models, models of agents that make sequential plans, and deep neural nets. I show that this also includes recent sequence to sequence architectures for dialog. I then use this framework to implement *dialog automation using workspaces, a variation on these architectures that is aimed at dialogs that require sufficiently deep reasoning between utterances that it is difficult to learn how to automate them from transcripts alone.
Biography: Andreas Stuhlmüller is a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford, working in Prof. Noah Goodman's Computation & Cognition lab, and founder of Ought Inc. Previously, he received his Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT, where he was part of Prof. Josh Tenenbaum's Computational Cognitive Science group. He has worked on the design and implementation of probabilistic programming languages, on their application to cognitive modeling, and recently on dialog systems. He is broadly interested in leveraging machine learning to help people think.
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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Chemical Engineering Senior Dinner
Fri, Apr 28, 2017 @ 06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Receptions & Special Events
Come join us for a night of food and fun with your fellow ChemE family!
(Open to MFD Faculty and MFD Graduating Seniors only)
Friday, April 28th
6:30 - 9 pm
El Cholo
1037 S Flower St
Los Angeles, CA 90015Location: El Cholo Restaurant
Audiences: MFD Faculty and Graduating Seniors
Contact: Aleessa Atienza
