SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Nov 03, 2017 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jane Gu, Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
Talk Title: Phase Noise Filter for LO Phase Noise Suppression
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Mahta Moghaddam, and Dina El-Damak
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Jane Gu.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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Munushian Speaker - Ana Claudia Arias, Friday, November 3rd at 2:00pm in EEB 132
Fri, Nov 03, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Ana Claudia Arias, University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Printed Flexible Wearable Medical Devices
Abstract: Wearable noninvasive medical sensing is extremely promising for monitoring human performance during physically demanding tasks. Printed sensors provide a distinct advantage over rigid sensors at establishing high-fidelity sensor-skin interfaces due to their inherently flexible material systems and form factors. Hence, these sensors are suitable for monitoring vital signs as well as analytes in bodily fluids. We have demonstrated an integrated wearable and flexible multi-sensor platform capable of simultaneous bioelectronic and biophotonic sensing of physiological state of the human body. The sensor platform is
composed of printed photoplethysmography (PPG) and sweat sensors. The PPG sensor uses blade coated red and near-infrared (NIR) organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and an organic photodiode (OPD) to optically measure heart rate and blood oxygenation. The sweat sensor is comprised of printed sodium, ammonium and lactate sensors. The lactate sensor exhibits high sensitivity of 26 uA/mM cm2 with the linear detection range of 1-20 mM of lactate. The sodium and ammonium sensors exhibit near-Nernstian response with sensitivities of 60.0 +/- 4.0 mV (detection range: 1-100 mM) and 56.1 +/- 2.2mV (detection range: 0.1-100 mM) per decade of concentrations, respectively. The sensors are interfaced with a Bluetooth System on Chip for wirelessly reading out sensor data. The complete system is powered by two flexible printed batteries at 8 V and are of 40 mAh capacity. This integrated platform can provide meaningful data to the end-users or healthcare professionals stretching the application domain of wearable sensing beyond the fitness domain to medical diagnostics.
Biography: Dr. Ana Claudia Arias is a Professor at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California in Berkeley and a faculty director at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC) and SWARM lab. Prior to joining the University of California she was the head of the Printed Electronic Devices Area and a Member of Research Staff at PARC, a Xerox Company, Palo Alto, CA. She went to PARC from Plastic Logic in Cambridge, UK where she led the semiconductor group. She received her PhD on semiconducting polymer blends for photovoltaic devices from the Physics Department at the University of Cambridge, UK. Prior to that, she received her master and bachelor degrees in Physics from the Federal University of Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil. Her research focuses on devices based on solution processed materials and applications development for flexible sensors and electronic systems. Ana Claudia is the chair of ThinFilm Electronics Technical Advisory Council and she is an author of over 100 peer reviewed publications and issued patents.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: minghsiehee.usc.edu/about/lectures/munushian
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Electrical Engineering Seminar
Fri, Nov 03, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr Vincent Gripon, IMT Atlantique
Talk Title: Generalizing Convolutional Neural Networks to Graph Domains
Abstract: For the past few years, various works have aimed at tackling the problem of extending Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)to irregular domains. In this presentation, we propose to use graphs as an intermediate solution, thus deriving two subproblems: a) identifying a graph given a set of signals and b) defining CNN-like structures given
a graph domain. For both problems we introduce original approaches and discuss their performance.
Biography: Vincent Gripon is a permanent researcher with IMT-Atlantique (Institut Mines-Télécom), Brest, France. He obtained his M.S. from Ãcole Normale Supérieure of Cachan and his Ph.D. from Télécom Bretagne. His research interests lie at the intersection of information
theory, computer science and neural networks. He co-authored about 60 papers in the above-mentioned domains.
Host: Dr. Antonio Ortega
More Information: Vincent Gripon Seminar.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gloria Halfacre
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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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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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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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Enabling Effective Performance Optimization Techniques for Heterogeneous System
Tue, Nov 14, 2017 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yun (Eric) Liang, Peking University, China
Talk Title: Enabling Effective Performance Optimization Techniques for Heterogeneous System
Abstract: Heterogeneous systems that couple CPUs with accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have become ubiquitous in the computing world due to their tremendous computing power. However, performance tuning for GPUs and FPGAs is not trivial. In this talk, I will first present the performance modeling and optimization for FPGAs. I will introduce an accurate performance model for OpenCL workloads on FPGAs and how we accelerate deep learning applications on FPGAs. For the second half of the talk, I will present on-chip storage and machine learning optimization techniques for GPUs. The proposed techniques leverage on compile-time and run-time techniques to improve the cache performance, register utilization, pipeline utilization and overall performance.
Biography: Yun (Eric) Liang is an assistant professor in School of EECS, Peking University, China. His research focuses on energy-efficient heterogeneous computing, computer architecture, compilation techniques, electronic design automation and embedded system design. He has authored over 60 scientific publications in premier international journals and conferences in this domain. His research has been recognized by best paper award at FCCM 2011 and ICCAD 2017 and best paper nominations at DAC 2017, ASPDAC 2016, DAC 2012, FPT 2011, CODES+ISSS 2008. Prof Liang serves as Associate Editor for ACM Transactions in Embedded Computing Systems (TECS) and serves in the program committees in the premier conferences in the related domain including (HPCA, PACT, CGO, ICCAD, ICS, CC, DATE, CASES, ASPDAC, ICCD).
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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Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering Joint Seminar Series on Cyber-Physical Systems Joint with CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Wed, Nov 15, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Victor Preciado, University of Pennsylvania
Talk Title: From Local Network Structure to Global Graph Spectrum
Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Abstract: Using methods from algebraic graph theory and convex optimization we study the relationship between local structural features of a network and global spectral properties. In particular, we derive expressions for the so-called spectral moments of a graph in terms of local structural measurements, such as subgraph densities. Furthermore, we propose a series of semidefinite programs to compute bounds on the spectral radius, and other spectral properties, from a truncated sequence of spectral moments. Using our tools, we illustrate how important spectral properties of real-world networks are strongly constrained by local structural features.
Biography: Victor M. Preciado received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. He is currently the Raj and Neera Singh Assistant Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Networked & Social Systems Engineering (NETS) program, the Warren Center for Network & Data Sciences, and the Applied Math and Computational Science (AMCS) program. He is a recipient of the 2017 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. His main research interests lie at the intersection of Big Data and Network Science; in particular, in using innovative mathematical and computational approaches to capture the essence of complex, high-dimensional dynamical systems. Relevant applications of this line of research can be found in the context of socio-technical networks, brain dynamical networks, healthcare operations, biological systems, and critical technological infrastructure.
Host: Mihailo Jovanovic
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Nov 17, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Samuel Palermo, Associate Professor, Texas A&M University
Talk Title: 40+Gb/s PAM4 Photonic Microring Resonator-Based Transceiver Circuits
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Mahta Moghaddam, and Dina El-Damak
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Samuel Palermo.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
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End of Moore's Law Challenges and Opportunities: Computer Architecture Perspectives
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Margaret Martonosi, Princeton University
Talk Title: End of Moore's Law Challenges and Opportunities: Computer Architecture Perspectives
Abstract: For decades, Moore's Law and its partner Dennard Scaling have driven technology trends that have enabled exponential performance improvements in computer systems at manageable power dissipation. With the slowing of Moore/Dennard improvements, designers have turned to a range of approaches for extending scaling of computer systems performance and power efficiency. Unfortunately, these scaling gains come at the expense of degraded hardware-software abstraction layers, increased complexity at the hardware-software interface, and increased challenges for software reliability, interoperability, and performance portability This talk will explore the way forward for computer systems designers in this "Post-ISA" era of shifting abstractions. The talk will cover hardware and software design opportunities, methods for formal verification, and a look into the role of future technologies including Quantum Computing.
Biography: Margaret Martonosi is the Hugh Trumbull Adams '35 Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, where she has been on the faculty since 1994. She is also currently serving a four-year term as Director of the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. Martonosi's research interests are in computer architecture and mobile computing, with particular focus on power-efficient systems. Her work has included the development of the Wattch power modeling tool and the Princeton ZebraNet mobile sensor network project for the design and real-world deployment of zebra tracking collars in Kenya. Her current research focuses on hardware-software interface approaches to manage heterogeneous parallelism and power-performance tradeoffs in systems ranging from smartphones to chip multiprocessors to large-scale data centers. Martonosi is a Fellow of both IEEE and ACM. Notable awards include the 2010 Princeton University Graduate Mentoring Award, the 2013 Anita Borg Institute Technical Leadership Award, the 2015 ISCA Long-Term Influential Paper Award, and the 2017 ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Award.
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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Center for Systems and Control (CSC@USC) and Ming Hsieh Institute for Electrical Engineering
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Srinivas Shakkottai, Texas A&M University
Talk Title: Towards a Market-mediated Software Defined Communications Ecosystem at the Wireless Edge
Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Abstract: Current wireless edge networks with tightly coupled PHY/MAC that cater to worst or average case performance lack the agility to best serve legions of heterogeneous applications. Simultaneously, software reconfigurable infrastructure has become increasingly mainstream to the point that per-packet and per-flow decisions can be dynamically controlled at multiple layers of the communications stack.
In this talk, I will describe our efforts at the design of software defined platforms that allow for the implementation of heterogeneous per-packet mechanisms. Key components include antennas with reconfigurable radiation patterns, reconfigurable modulation and coding schemes, and reconfigurable queues for medium access control (MAC). We have two parallel thrusts in this direction. The first is on using legacy hardware and tapping into existing reconfigurability mechanisms available on off-the-shelf wireless access points. The second is on developing a clean-slate programmable PHY/MAC platform on which desired mechanisms that can provide services such as ultra-low latencies (< 5 ms) can be configured as needed.
Tying together these layers, I will describe a market-based platform, FlowBazaar that allows us to measure Quality of Service (QoS) statistics on the wireless edge, to determine the mapping between these statistics and the resultant impact on perceived application performance measured by Quality of Experience (QoE), and to complete the chain by eliciting the end-user to declare the value of obtaining such QoEs using small-scale auctions. We thus enable an ecosystem wherein disparate applications are able to obtain the necessary resources for optimal performance.
Biography: Srinivas Shakkottai received a PhD (2007) in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a post-doctoral scholar in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University in 2007, and is currently an associate professor at the Dept. of ECE at Texas A&M University. His research interests include content distribution systems, economics of network resource allocation, game theory, wireless networks, and Internet data analytics. Srinivas is the recipient of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Young Investigator Award (2009) and the NSF Career Award (2012), as well as faculty research awards from Cisco (2008) and Google (2010). He also received The Dept. of ECE Outstanding Professor Award (2013) and was selected as a TEES (College of Engineering) Select Young Faculty Fellow (2014) at Texas A&M University.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar, ashutosh.nayyar@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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A Cross-Layered Approach to Design Reliable Hardware for Computing Systems
Tue, Nov 21, 2017 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: William H. Robinson, Vanderbilt University
Talk Title: A Cross-Layered Approach to Design Reliable Hardware for Computing Systems
Abstract: Reliability analysis of integrated circuits (ICs) has become a greater concern in the development of computing systems. Technology scaling offers more transistors to enable system-on-a-chip (SoC) integration, but it also means more transistors that can be affected by radiation-induced faults. Designers must consider how those faults impact the entire computing system by including levels of abstraction in both hardware and software. Cross-layered modeling and simulation enables a better understanding of the complex interactions among particle physics, fabrication technology, processor architecture, and the software stack in order to develop reliable computing systems.
This talk describes a novel method of modeling radiation strikes of varying intensities in intra-pipeline combinational logic, while incorporating important characteristics including: (1) logical, electrical, and timing masking factors in circuit operation, (2) automated placement for logic cell adjacency, and (3) well geometry for a charge-sharing-based model of ion strikes. This talk will also highlight: (1) methods for characterizing microprocessors for radiation-induced failures, (2) methods for mitigating faults in microprocessors, and (3) open questions regarding microprocessor resilience.
Biography: William H. Robinson received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in 1996 and his M.S. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in 1998. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech in 2003. In August 2003, Dr. Robinson joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor, and he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010. Currently, he serves as an Associate Dean in the School of Engineering.
Dr. Robinson leads the Security And Fault Tolerance (SAF-T) Research Group at Vanderbilt University, whose mission is to conduct transformational research that addresses the reliability and security of computing systems. He also co-leads the Explorations in Diversifying Engineering Faculty Initiative (EDEFI) (pronounced "edify"), which investigates the institutional, technical, social, and cultural factors that impact the current underrepresentation of African Americans in engineering faculty positions. His major honors include selection for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Computer Science Study Panel, both in 2008. Dr. Robinson is a Senior Member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and a lifetime member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).
Host: Murali Annavaram, annavara@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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
Mon, Nov 27, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Maxim Raginsky, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: Decentralized Online Optimization with Global Objectives and Local Communication
Series: Fall 2017 Joint CSC@USC/CommNetS-MHI Seminar Series
Abstract: This talk, based on joint work with Soomin Lee and Angelia Nedich, focuses on a decentralized online convex optimization problem, where each agent controls only one coordinate of the global decision vector. The agents communicate with their neighbors over a static undirected graph or over a time-varying sequence of directed graphs under a uniform connectivity condition. We propose a decentralized variant of Nesterov's primal-dual algorithm with dual averaging. To mitigate the disagreements on the primal-vector updates that arise due to locality of communication, the agents implement a generalization of the local information-exchange dynamics recently proposed by Li and Marden in the undirected case, and a broadcast-based gradient push-sum dynamics in the directed case. We show that, when the step size is chosen appropriately and the objective functions are Lipschitz with Lipschitz gradients, the resulting regret is sublinear in the time horizon.
Biography: Maxim Raginsky received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in 2000 and the Ph.D. degree in 2002 from Northwestern University, all in electrical engineering. He has held research positions with Northwestern, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where he was a Beckman Foundation Fellow from 2004 to 2007), and Duke University. In 2012, he returned to UIUC, where he is currently an Associate Professor and William L. Everitt Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Raginsky received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2013. His research interests lie at the intersection of information theory, machine learning, and control. He is a member of the editorial boards of Foundations and Trends in Communications and Information Theory and IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar, ashutosh.nayyar@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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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 29, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Soummya Kar, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Title: Resilient Distributed Inference in Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract: In applications such as large-scale cyber-physical systems (CPS) and Internet-of-Things (IoT), as the number of devices or agents continues to grow, the integrity and trustworthiness of data generated by these devices becomes a pressing issue of paramount importance. An adversary may hijack individual devices or the communication channel between devices to maliciously alter data streams. In numerous IoT applications, we deploy physical devices throughout an environment, and we are interested in using the stream of sensor measurements to make inferences about the environmental state. Due to the large-scale and distributed nature of devices and data it might be infeasible to carry out computation and decision-making in a classical centralized fashion as well as to prevent attacks and intrusions on all data sources. As a result, reactive countermeasures, such as intrusion detection schemes and resilient inference algorithms become a vital component of security in distributed IoT-type setups.
As an alternative to traditional fusion-center based cloud setups, in this talk we focus on fog-type architectures in which devices themselves perform the necessary computations using local data and peer-to-peer information exchange with neighboring devices to make inferences about an environment. In the first part of the talk, we review distributed inference approaches and algorithms based on the consensus+innovations paradigm. We discuss performance metrics such as rates of convergence, communication complexity, and optimality. The second part of the talk focuses on recent work on secure and resilient variants of these algorithms in adversarial environments. Specifically, focusing on the case of data integrity attacks on the device network, we characterize fundamental trade-offs between resilience, quantified in terms of achievable inference performance and ability to detect intrusions and threats, and model properties such as observability and connectivity of the inter-device communication network.
Biography: Soummya Kar received a B.Tech. in electronics and electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in May 2005 and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, in 2010. From June 2010 to May 2011, he was with the Electrical Engineering Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. His research interests include decision-making in large-scale networked systems, stochastic systems, multi-agent systems and data science, with applications to cyber-physical systems and smart energy systems. Recent recognition of his work includes the 2016 O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award from the American Automatic Control Council and a 2016 Dean's Early Career Fellowship from CIT, Carnegie Mellon.
Host: Paul Bogdan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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Memristive Accelerators for Data Intensive Computing: From Machine Learning to High- Performance Linear Algebra
Thu, Nov 30, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Engin Ipek, University of Rochester
Talk Title: Memristive Accelerators for Data Intensive Computing: From Machine Learning to High- Performance Linear Algebra
Abstract: DRAM is facing severe scalability challenges due to precise charge placement and sensing hurdles in deep-submicron geometries. Resistive memories, such as phase-change memory (PCM), resistive RAM (RRAM), and spin-torque transfer magnetoresistive RAM (STT-MRAM), hold the potential to scale well beyond DRAM and are promising DRAM replacements. Although the near term application of these technologies will likely be in main memory and storage, their electrical properties also make it possible to design qualitatively new methods of accelerating important classes of workloads.
In this talk, I will examine high-performance memristive compute engines that combine two powerful capabilities: in-situ data processing and analog computing. Implementations of these engines using PCM, RRAM, and STT-MRAM will be introduced, and their application to machine learning, combinatorial optimization, and scientific computing workloads will be presented. The talk will conclude with a discussion of the novel error correction techniques that are necessary to make the reliability and precision of memristive accelerators competitive with digital systems.
Biography: Engin Ipek is an Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. His research interests are in energy-efficient architectures, high-performance memory systems, and the application of emerging technologies to computer systems. Prof. Ipek received his BS (2003), MS (2007), and Ph.D. (2008) degrees from Cornell University, all in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prior to joining the University of Rochester, he was a researcher in the computer architecture group at Microsoft Research (2007-2009). His work has been recognized by the 2014 IEEE Computer Society TCCA Young Computer Architect Award, an HPCA 2016 distinguished paper award, three IEEE Micro Top Picks awards, an ASPLOS 2010 best paper award, an NSF CAREER award, and an invited Communications of the ACM research highlights article.
Host: Xuehai Qian, x04459, xuehai.qian@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
