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• Student Activity (2)
• Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars (11)
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• Workshops & Infosessions (3)

Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for January

• Jan

  06

  Innovations in Metallurgical Manufacturing: From Concept to Implementation

  Thu, Jan 06, 2005 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

  Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Innovations in Metallurgical Manufacturing: From Concept to ImplementationPatricio F. Mendez
  Assistant Professor
  Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
  Colorado School of MinesABSTRACTMetal processing operations are governed by a number of physical principles, typically
  many more than other manufacturing processes such as the assembly of parts, for
  instance. This physical complexity is a double edge sword: it opens the door to radically
  new ideas, but it makes their design and implementation very difficult. This presentation
  will address this challenge from both points of view.
  I will introduce a conceptual framework and new tools to address technical complexity;
  we will see how scaling and similarity techniques can be extended to tackle the multicoupled
  and often poorly defined problems in metals processing, using welding as an
  example. I will also use some of these tools to analyze a radically new metallurgical
  process very similar to Contour Crafting, and show how this analysis could be extended
  beyond metals. Finally, I will describe de invention of a new die-casting process using
  semi-solid metals, based on the alteration of existing processes. This process has
  revolutionized the semi-solid industry, and it is currently being used to manufacture a
  component of the Ford Focus.

  Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 309

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Shah Nirav

  

• Jan

  12

  Generalized ACE codes

  Wed, Jan 12, 2005 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

  Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  SPEAKER: Mr. Aditya Ramamoorthy, EE Dept, UCLAABSTRACT: Low-Density Parity-Check Codes have been the subject of intense research lately because of their linear decoding complexity and near capacity achieving performance. Recent results show that LDPC codes drawn at random from irregular degree distribution ensembles can have significantly better performance asymptotically than regular LDPC codes and in fact provably achieve capacity over the binary erasure channel.At finite block lengths however one can achieve much better performance over randomly chosen codes by a careful construction of the parity check matrix. In this talk I shall explain the Approximate Cycle EMD (ACE) algorithm (Tian et al.) for the construction of LDPC codes for a given block length and degree distribution and discuss a generalization of their approach. I shall discuss the analysis of the expected stopping set spectrum of generalized ACE constrained ensembles which shows their improved performance over the binary erasure channel and the expansion properties of these codes that justifies their improved performance over the AWGN channel. Techniques for improving the performance even further at short block lengths will also be presented.This is joint work with Prof. Richard Wesel.BIO: Aditya Ramamoorthy is a Ph.D. candidate in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1999 and his M.S. from UCLA in 2002. From 1999-2001 he was working as a systems engineer at Biomorphic VLSI Inc. In the summer of 2004 he was an intern at Microsoft Research working on network coding.His research interests include coding theory (in particular LDPC code design and analysis) and network coding.Host: Dr. Keith M. Chugg, x.07294, chugg@usc.edu

  Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

  

• Jan

  19

  METRANS/ISE 650 Doctoral SEMINAR

  Wed, Jan 19, 2005 @ 03:30 PM - 04:45 PM

  Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  THE IMPACT OF DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS OF ROAD PUBLIC TRANSPORT ON DISTANCE COVERED AND ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTIONMarco DianaPost Doctoral Fellow
  Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité (INRETS - The French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research)
  Département Economie et Sociologie des Transports (DEST)ABSTRACTThe operation of public transport services that minimize emissions of pollutants plays a key role in improving air quality in urban areas. Considerable financial resources are employed to buy buses with innovative propulsive systems. However municipalities in poorer countries might not have sufficient funds to endow their fleets with such vehicles. We discuss the possibility of lowering distances traveled and associated emissions by changing the organizational form of the service. We consider a traditional bus service and a demand responsive service using buses or vans, and we identify the best system for every combination of demand and service quality with respect to travel and emissions minimization. The analysis is repeated for different urban patterns and street networks. Results indicate that the use of a demand responsive service can lower distances traveled when the demand is quite low, but that a good quality is required, provided that service requests are known in advance. Furthermore, the utilization of smaller vans with lower emission factors can deliver substantial benefits in terms of reducing atmospheric pollution, with an often negligible increase in kilometers traveled.BiosketchMarco Diana is a post doctoral fellow at INRETS, the French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research. He graduated in Civil Engineering at Turin Polytechnic (Italy), where he also took his Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering. He previously visited with USC's Epstein ISE Department for 7 months as a part of his Ph.D. research program. His research interests focus mainly on issues related to the ground implementation of unconventional public transportation modes, both on the supply (planning challenges) and on the demand side (users' behavioral reactions).
  

  Location: Ralph And Goldy Lewis Hall (RGL) - - 308

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Shah Nirav

  

• Jan

  20

  Optimization Problems in the Logistics Industry

  Thu, Jan 20, 2005 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

  Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Optimization Problems in the Logistics IndustryDr. Amelia C. Regan
  Associate Professor
  Computer Science and Civil Engineering
  University of California, Irvine ABSTRACT We will discuss research on several optimization problems arising from discussions with trucking industry executives. These include routing of local fleets under uncertainty, bidding in combinatorial auctions, the winner determination problem in combinatorial auctions and the closely related bid analysis problem in unit auctions in which a set of mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive lanes (origin-destination pairs, with associated demands) are placed in bundles before the auction is executed.

  Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 309

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Shah Nirav

  

• Jan

  20

  DISTINGUISHED LECTURER SERIES - DNA: Not Merely the Secret of Life, Prof. Nadrian Seeman, NYU

  Thu, Jan 20, 2005 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

  Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Abstract:========Our laboratory works in the area of structural DNA nanotechnology. We use the concept of reciprocal exchange between DNA double helices to produce branched DNA motifs, like Holliday junctions, or related structures, such as double crossover (DX), triple crossover (TX), paranemic crossover (PX) and DNA parallelogram motifs. We combine DNA motifs, using sticky-ended cohesion, to produce specific structures. The key strength of sticky-ended cohesion is that it produces predictable adhesion combined with known structure. We have constructed DNA stick-polyhedra, whose edges are double helices, and whose vertices are the branch points of DNA branched junctions. These include a cube, a truncated octahedron, and an irregular graph. Nanorobotics are key to the success of nanotechnology. We have used two DX molecules to construct a DNA nanomechanical device by linking them with a segment that can be switched between left-handed Z-DNA with right-handed B-DNA. PX DNA has been used to produce a robust sequence-dependent device that changes states by varied hybridization topology. The sequence-dependent nature of this device means that a variety of them attached to a motif can all be addressed individually. Recently, we have used this device to make a machine that does chemical translation. A central goal of DNA nanotechnology is the self-assembly of periodic matter. We have constructed micron-sized 2-dimensional DNA arrays from DX, TX, two kinds of parallelogram motifs. We can produce specific designed patterns visible in the AFM from DX and TX molecules. We can change the patterns by changing the components and by modification after assembly. Recently, we have used new motifs to produce honeycomb-shaped arrays. The key structural challenge in the area is the extension of the 2D results obtained so far to 3D systems with a high degree of ordering. Crystals with dimensions as large as a millimeter, ordered to 10 Å resolution (as determined by X-ray diffraction) have been produced. Ultimately, we expect to be able to produce high resolution crystals of DNA host lattices with heterologous guests, leading to well-ordered bio-macromolecular systems amenable to diffraction analysis. Other challenges are to incorporate DNA nanomechanical devices in periodic and aperiodic lattices and to use the lattices to organize nanoelectronic components, such as metallic nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes.Bio:===Nadrian C. Seeman was born in Chicago in 1945. Following a BS in biochemistry from the University of Chicago, he received his Ph.D. in biological crystallography from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. His postdoctoral training, at Columbia and MIT, emphasized nucleic acid crystallography. He obtained his first independent position at SUNY/Albany, where his frustrations with the macromolecular crystallization experiment and his awareness of the fatal series--no crystals, no crystallography, no crystallographer--led him to the campus pub one day in the fall of 1980. There, he realized that the similarity between 6-arm DNA branched junctions and the flying fish in the periodic array of Escher's 'Depth' might lead to a rational approach to the organization of matter on the nanometer scale, particularly crystallization. Ever since, he has been trying to implement this approach and its spin-offs, such as nanorobotics and the organization of nanoelectronics; since 1988 he has worked at New York University. When told in the mid-1980's that he was doing nanotechnology, his response was similar to that of M. Jourdain, the title character of Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilehomme, who was delighted to discover that he had been speaking prose all his life. Further information is available at http://seemanlab4.chem.nyu.edu.Host: Prof. Urbashi Mitra, x04667 ***A reception will follow the seminar at 4:00p.m.
  

  Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium (GER-124)

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Rosine Sarafian

  

• Jan

  26

  Genomics: From Human Health to the Environment

  Wed, Jan 26, 2005 @ 04:00 PM

  USC Viterbi School of Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Dr. J. Craig Venter, President of the J. Craig Venter Institute, will present a special Molecular Biology Seminar sponsored by the USC department of molecular and computational biology. More information: contact Eva Emerson at 821-2480 or eemerson@usc.edu.

  Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium, USC University Park Campus

  Audiences: Grad students

  Contact: Eric Mankin

  

• Jan

  27

  A POSC Update: perspectives on information, collaboration and standardization

  Thu, Jan 27, 2005 @ 03:00 PM

  Information Sciences Institute

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  This presentation describes the key activities and the standards developed during Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium (POSC's) 14 year history. Dr. David Archer will focus on the value delivered to the industry via the consortium's work on information management standards and XML-based data exchange standards for real time systems including the popular WITSMLstandard for drilling. New information standards will be required as the industry embraces smart systems. This presentation will address the evolution of the WITSML framework to provide XML standards for production operations.David Archer is President and CEO of POSC. In this role, he is the leader of
  the consortium with responsibility for its direction, operation and
  communication with both the POSC Community and the industry at large. Dr. Archer is a well-known industry spokesman ˆ frequently playing the role of
  organizer, moderator and/or speaker in seminars and conferences.Throughout his professional career, he has had strong interests in
  collaborative efforts across both disciplines and organizations. He has also
  been very interested in new technologies and has helped pioneer several for
  the industry ˆ among these are graphical user interfaces, 3D visualization,
  XML and Web Services. The two themes of collaboration and new technologies. (repeated Jan. 28 on the University Park Campus)
  have been central to his tenure at POSC.David is a native Texan, and he holds MA and PhD degrees in Mathematical
  Sciences from Rice University as well as a BS degree in Mathematics from TCU. Other academic affiliations include past President of the Rice Engineering Alumni, Adjunct Professor Mathematics at the University of Houston; he is also on the Advisory Board of the College of Technology at UH.

  Location: 11th Floor Conference Room, ISI

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Eric Mankin

  

• Jan

  28

  A POSC Update: perspectives on information, collaboration and standardization

  Fri, Jan 28, 2005 @ 09:00 AM

  USC Viterbi School of Engineering

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  This presentation describes the key activities and the standards developed during Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium (POSC's) 14 year history. Dr. David Archer will focus on the value delivered to the industry via the consortium's work on information management standards and XML-based data exchange standards for real time systems including the popular WITSMLstandard for drilling. New information standards will be required as the industry embraces smart systems. This presentation will address the evolution of the WITSML framework to provide XML standards for production operations.David Archer is President and CEO of POSC. In this role, he is the leader of
  the consortium with responsibility for its direction, operation and
  communication with both the POSC Community and the industry at large. Dr. Archer is a well-known industry spokesman ˆ frequently playing the role of
  organizer, moderator and/or speaker in seminars and conferences.Throughout his professional career, he has had strong interests in
  collaborative efforts across both disciplines and organizations. He has also
  been very interested in new technologies and has helped pioneer several for
  the industry ˆ among these are graphical user interfaces, 3D visualization,
  XML and Web Services. The two themes of collaboration and new technologies. (repeated Jan. 28 on the University Park Campus)
  have been central to his tenure at POSC.David is a native Texan, and he holds MA and PhD degrees in Mathematical
  Sciences from Rice University as well as a BS degree in Mathematics from TCU. Other academic affiliations include past President of the Rice Engineering Alumni, Adjunct Professor Mathematics at the University of Houston; he is also on the Advisory Board of the College of Technology at UH.

  Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Eric Mankin

  

• Jan

  28

  Self-Reconfigurable Robots and Digital Hormones for Multifunctional Applications

  Fri, Jan 28, 2005 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

  Information Sciences Institute

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Patrick Pantel hosts a talk by Dr. Wei-Min ShenSelf-reconfigurable modular robots are metamorphic systems that can autonomously change their logical or physical configurations (such as shapes, sizes, or formations), as well as their locomotion and manipulation, based on the mission and the environment in hand. Because of their modularity, versatility, self-healing ability and low cost reproducibility, such robots provide a flexible approach for achieving complex tasks in unstructured and dynamic environments. They are well suited for applications such as search and rescue, reconnaissance, self-assembly, inspections in hazardous environments, and exploration in space and ocean.The construction and control of these robots, however, are very challenging due to the dynamic topology of the module network, the limited resource of individual modules, the difficulties in global synchronization, the preclusion of centralized decision makers, and the unreliability of communication among modules. This talk presents the recent progress in our lab for these challenging tasks and their applications for affordable and sustainable space missions in the near future. Dr. Shen will present the hormone-inspired distributed control architecture and algorithms (US-patented), demonstrate with movies for the ability of plug-and-play and arbitrarily reshuffling modules (body-parts) in systems, discuss theoretical development for self-reconfigurable systems in general, analyze the hardware/software challenges in making such robots for real-world multifunctional applications, and outline current solutions for these challenging tasks. The talk will be interactive and feedback and discussions are most welcome.Bio:Dr. Wei-Min Shen is the director of Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory (http://www.isi.edu/robots) at USC/Information Sciences Institute (ISI), and has over 22 years of experience in research. Dr. Wei-Min Shen is also an Associate Director at the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, and a Research Assistant Professor in Computer Science at University of Southern California (USC). He received his Ph.D. under Nobel Laureate Professor Herbert A. Simon from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989, and had extensive training in machine learning and machine discovery. His unique approach to machine learning is published as a 360-page book on surprise-based learning (Shen94), with a remarkable foreword written by Herbert Simon. His current research interests include self-reconfigurable and metamorphic systems, autonomous robots, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Life Science. He has about 100 publications in these areas. He is the recipient of a Silver-Medal Award in 1996 AAAI Robotics Competition, a World Championship Award in 1997 Middle-sized RoboCup Competition, a Meritorious Service Award at ISI in 1997, and a Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award at USC in 2003. He is the author of the book "Autonomous Learning from the Environment" published by W.H. Freeman in 1994, and the inventor of hormone-inspired distributed and decentralized control for self-reconfigurable systems (US Patent #006636781). He has served as chairs and committee members for international conferences and workshops in Robotics, Machine Learning, and Data Mining, and as editorial board members for scientific books and research journals. His research activities have been reported by leading scientific journals such as SCIENCE (9/26/1997 and 8/8/2003) and NATURE (5/28/2004), and media press such as CNN, PBS, Discovery, and other newspapers and magazines in the world. His research has been supported by NSF, AFOSR, DARPA, and NASA. He is on the Editorial Board for the journal of Intelligent Data Analysis, and a special editor for self-reconfigurable robots for IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics. He has reviewed papers for Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Robots, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, IEEE Trans. on Data and Knowledge Engineering, IEEE Trans. on Robotics, IEEE Trans. on Mechatronics, Machine Learning, Decision Support Systems, and Distributed and Parallel Databases. Book editor for Learning Action Models (AAAI Press). Handbook of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (Cambridge University Press). Conference Chair for the 7th International Conference on Autonomous Intelligent Systems. Program committee member for National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Agents Conference, the International Conference of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
  

  Location: 11th Floor Conference Room, ISI

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Eric Mankin

  

• Jan

  28

  Microstructure and Internal Stresses in Cyclically Deformed Al and Cu Single Crystals

  Fri, Jan 28, 2005 @ 02:45 PM - 04:00 PM

  Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  Presented by: Michael E. Kassner, PhD.
  Department Chair
  Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Refreshments served at 2:30

  Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217

  Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

  Contact: Petra Pearce

  

• Jan

  31

  Internship Workshop

  Mon, Jan 31, 2005 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

  Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

  Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

  
  

  A representative from Engineering Career Services will present information on internships. Learn where to look for internships and get tips on impressing employers both before and during the internship!

  Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106

  Audiences: Engineering Students

  Contact: Engineering Career Services