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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Feb 02, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Maryam Shanechi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, USC
Talk Title: BME department
Host: Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Munushian Seminar Michael Roukes
Mon, Feb 02, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael Roukes, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Integrated Neurophotonics: Toward Massively-Parallel Mapping of Brain Activity
Abstract: In 2011, six U.S. scientists from different disciplines banded together, outlined a vision [1], and managed to convince the Obama administration of the unprecedented opportunity that now exists to launch a coordinated, large-scale effort to map brain activity. This culminated in the U.S. BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), which was launched in 2013. Our vision was predicated on the current level of maturity of diverse fields of nanotechnology that, for the first time, can now be coalesced to realize powerful new tools for neuroscience. I will outline the assertions we made, and focus upon our own collaborative efforts toward these goals - at Caltech and beyond - to realize this exciting potential.
[1] Alivisatos A.P., Chun M., Church G.M., Greenspan R.J., Roukes M.L., Yuste R., The Brain Activity Map project and the challenge of functional connectomics. Neuron 74, 970-4 (2012).
Biography: Michael Roukes is the Robert M. Abbey Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology . His scientific interests range from quantum measurement to applied biotechnology - with a unifying theme of the development, very-large-scale integration and application of complex nanostructures. Roukes was the founding Director of Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) from 2003-2006. In 2007, he co-founded the Alliance for Nanosystems VLSI (very-large-scale integration) with scientists and engineers at CEA/LETI in Grenoble, which maintains a $B-scale microelectronics research foundry. He then continued as co-director of Caltech's KNI from 2008-2013, when he stepped down to pursue full-time efforts in nanoscience and neuroscience. Concurrent with his Caltech appointment, he has held a Chaire d'Excellence in nanoscience in Grenoble, France since 2008. Among his honors, Roukes is a recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer Award and has been awarded Chevalier (Knight) dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the Republic of France.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Tue, Feb 03, 2015 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Amanda Randles, Lawrence Fellow, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at Livermore, CA
Talk Title: Using Massively Parallel Simulation to Study Human Disease
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: The recognition of the role hemodynamic forces have in the localization and development of disease has motivated large-scale efforts to enable patient-specific simulations. When combined with computational approaches that can extend the models to include physiologically accurate hematocrit levels in large regions of the circulatory system, these image-based models yield insight into the underlying mechanisms driving disease progression and inform surgical planning or the design of next generation drug delivery systems. Building a detailed, realistic model of human blood flow, however, is a formidable mathematical and computational challenge. The models must incorporate the motion of fluid, intricate geometry of the blood vessels, continual pulse-driven changes in flow and pressure, and the behavior of suspended bodies such as red blood cells. In this talk, I will discuss the development of HARVEY, a parallel fluid dynamics application designed to model hemodynamics in patient-specific geometries. I will cover the methods introduced to reduce the overall time-to-solution and enable near-linear strong scaling on up to 1,572,864 core of the IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer. Finally, I will present the expansion of the scope of projects to address not only vascular diseases, but also treatment planning and the movement of circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream.
Biography: Amanda Randles is a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow working in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at LLNL. Working with Professors Efthimios Kaxiras and Hanspeter Pfister, she completed her Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Harvard University with a secondary field in Computational Science in 2013. In 2010 she obtained her Master's Degree in Computer Science from Harvard University. Prior to graduate school, she worked for three years as a software developer at IBM on the Blue Gene Development Team. Her primary roles were in application development and performance analysis. She received her Bachelor's Degree in both Computer Science and Physics from Duke University.
Host: --
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
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Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Tue, Feb 03, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Yasamin Mostofi, UC Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Robotics and RF: From X-Ray Vision with WiFi to Communication-Aware Robotics
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: RF signals are everywhere these days. As we go on with our daily lives, we constantly leave our signature on these signals by breaking them. This naturally raises the question of how much information these signals carry about us or, in general, about their environment. For instance, imagine two unmanned vehicles arriving behind thick concrete walls. They have no prior knowledge of the area behind these walls.
But they are able to see every square inch of the invisible area through the walls, fully imaging what is on the other side with high accuracy. Can the robots achieve this with only WiFi signals and no other sensors? As another example, consider the WiFi network of a building. Can it estimate the occupancy level of the building and the spatial concentration of the people with a good accuracy?
In the first part of the talk, I will discuss our latest theoretical and experimental results to achieve these goals. More specifically, I show that it is possible to achieve x-ray vision with only WiFi signals and image details through thick concrete walls. Furthermore, I discuss occupancy estimation where I show how to extract the level of occupancy from WiFi measurements. With the vision of unmanned vehicles becoming part of our everyday society soon, the talk also shows how WiFi signals can give x-ray vision to robots.
In the second part of the talk, I focus on communication-aware robotics. I will start by developing a foundational understanding for the spatial predictability of wireless channels. This allows each robot to go beyond the over-simplified but commonly-used disk model for connectivity, and realistically assess the impact of a motion decision on its link. By utilizing this framework, I will then show how each unmanned vehicle can best co-optimize its communication, sensing and navigation objectives under resource constraints. This co-optimized approach results in a significant performance improvement as I discuss in the talk.
Biography: Yasamin Mostofi received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1997, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, Stanford, California, in 1999 and 2004, respectively. She is currently an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Yasamin is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, the IEEE 2012 Outstanding Engineer Award of Region 6 (more than 10 Western U.S. states), and the 1999 Bellcore fellow-advisor award from Stanford Center for Telecommunications, among other awards. Her research is on mobile sensor networks. Current research thrusts include RF sensing, see-through imaging with WiFi, X-ray vision for robots, communication-aware robotics, and robotic networks. Her research has appeared in several news outlets such as BBC and Engadget.
Host: Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari and the Ming Hsieh Institute
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 04, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: John B. Bell, Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Low Mach Number Simulation of Turbulent Combustion
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: Numerical simulation of turbulent reacting flows with comprehensive kinetics is one of the most demanding areas of computational fluid dynamics. High-fidelity modeling requires accurate fluid mechanics, detailed models for multicomponent transport and detailed chemical mechanisms. An important aspect of turbulent flames in most combustion systems is that they occur in a low Mach number regime. By exploiting the separation of scales inherent in low Mach number flows one can potentially obtain significant computational savings, enabling a wider range of problems to be modeled. However, accurate numerical solution of the low Mach number reacting flow equations, which are structurally similar to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, introduces a number of challenges. Here, we discuss some of these issues, focusing on treating the low Mach number constraint and the coupling of processes with different temporal scales. Results illustrating the methodology on turbulent combustion problems with detailed chemistry and transport will be presented.
Biography: John Bell is a Senior Staff Mathematician at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Chief Scientist of Berkeley Labâs Computational Research Division. His research focuses on the development and analysis of numerical methods for partial differential equations arising in science and engineering. He has made contributions in the areas of finite volume methods, numerical methods for low Mach number flows, adaptive mesh refinement, stochastic differential equations, interface tracking and parallel computing. He has also worked on the application of these numerical methods to problems from a broad range of fields, including combustion, shock physics, seismology, and flow in porous media, mesoscale fluid modeling and astrophysics.
Host: Paul Ronney
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
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Computer Science George A. Bekey Distinguished Lecture: Jeff Dean (Google) - Building More Intelligent Computer Systems with Large-Scale Deep Learning
Thu, Feb 05, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jeff Dean, Google
Talk Title: Building More Intelligent Computer Systems with Large-Scale Deep Learning
Series: CS Distinguished Lectures
Abstract: Reception from 3:30-4:00PM.
Three years ago we started a small effort to see if we could build training systems for large-scale deep neural networks and use these to make significant progress on various perceptual tasks. Since then, our software systems and algorithms have been used by dozens of different groups at Google to train state-of-the-art models for speech recognition, image recognition, various visual detection tasks, language modeling, ads click prediction, language translation, and various other tasks. In this talk, I'll highlight some of the distributed systems and algorithms that we use in order to train large models quickly. I'll then discuss ways in which we have applied this work to a variety of problems in Google's products, usually in close collaboration with other teams.
This talk describes joint work with many people at Google.
Biography: Jeff joined Google in 1999 and is currently a Google Senior Fellow in Google's Knowledge Group, where he leads Google's deep learning research team in Mountain View. He has co designed/implemented five generations of Google's crawling, indexing, and query serving systems, and co designed/implemented major pieces of Google's initial advertising and AdSense for Content systems. He is also a co-designer and co-implementor of Google's distributed computing infrastructure, including the MapReduce, BigTable and Spanner systems, protocol buffers, LevelDB, systems infrastructure for statistical machine translation, and a variety of internal and external libraries and developer tools. He is currently working on large-scale distributed systems for machine learning. He is a Fellow of the ACM, a fellow of the AAAS, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of the Mark Weiser Award and the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences.
Host: Wyatt Lloyd
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium
Fri, Feb 06, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: John Halchak, Senior Fellow of Rocketdyne
Talk Title: A History of Rocketry (from a Materials Standpoint)
Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering along with UCLA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Fri, Feb 06, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Guangying Zhu, "Judy", Astani CEE Ph.D. Candidate
Talk Title: Three-Dimensional (3D) Soil Structure Interaction with Normal-Plane P-Wave Incidence: Rigid Foundation
Abstract:
The presentation is about an analytic solution of a three-dimensional Soil-Structural Interaction (3D SSI) model in which the building and foundation are idealized respectively to be cylindrical thin-rod and rigid hemisphere. The ground is a stress-free elastic, isotropic, homogenous half-space, and excitation is vertical plane P-incident wave. Analytic three-dimensional (3D) solutions are presented which satisfy the stress-free boundary conditions at the half-space surface. Foundation motions, relative responses of building and surface displacement of soil around building are analyzed and discussed. A comparison with related two-dimensional (2D) SSI close-form solution is also described.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Feb 09, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Vinay A. Duddalwar, MD, FRCR, Associate Professor of Radiology and Urology Section Chief Abdominal Imaging, USC Medical Director, Imaging, Norris Cancer Center at keck medical Center USC
Talk Title: Quantitative Imaging metrics / Radiomics in Renal Mass Imaging
Abstract: An overview of our work in extracting quantitative data from renal mass imaging especially with CT and Contrast enhanced ultrasound. We discuss the use of this data in diagnosis, prognostics and management in patients. This data has been used clinically at USC after validation.
The delivery of this data to the end-users is also evolving. Traditional or legacy systems such as a standard radiology report cannot convey the information in a usable format. Our group is experimenting with non-traditional formats such as 3d printing, virtual purpose built models, and interactive reports.
Biography: Dr. Vinay Duddalwar graduated from the University of Nagpur in India. After being at the University of Pune, India, he then completed his radiology residency in Aberdeen, UK, and completed an abdominal imaging and intervention fellowship at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He then joined the faculty at the Grampian University Hospitals Trust, Aberdeen, UK.
In 2004, he joined the Body Imaging Division at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is now the head of the Abdominal Section in the Body Imaging Division.
Host: Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloquium Lecture: Dr. Cynthia Dwork (Microsoft Research) - Privacy in the Land of Plenty
Tue, Feb 10, 2015 @ 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Dwork, Microsoft Research
Talk Title: Privacy in the Land of Plenty
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Privacy-preserving data analysis has a large literature that spans several disciplines. "Differential privacy" -- a notion tailored to situations in which data are plentiful -- has provided a theoretically sound and powerful framework, and given rise to an explosion of research. We will review the definition of differential privacy, describe some algorithmic contributions, and conclude with a surprising application.
A link to view the lecture Live is available HERE.
Host: Computer Science Department
More Info: https://bluejeans.com/277032321
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
Event Link: https://bluejeans.com/277032321
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Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS)
Wed, Feb 11, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Yutaka Hori, Caltech
Talk Title: A Control Theoretic Approach to Designing Biochemical Feedback Circuits
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: Recent technological advancements have enabled us to construct artificial biochemical networks, or biocircuits, that produce desired dynamic functions such as bistability, oscillations and logic gates by assembling DNA parts. Toward a systematic engineering of complex biological systems, model-based biocircuit design has been increasingly important in recent years. In this talk, we present a control theoretic framework for the systematic design and identification of biocircuits along with experimental results. In the first part of the talk, we introduce a general model representation of biocircuits and provide rigorous theoretical tools for the analysis of biochemical dynamics. The theoretical tools are demonstrated by experimentally designing biochemical oscillator circuits. In the latter half of the talk, we propose a set-based identification method for identifying a set of parameters that all explain time-series experimental data, using a convex relaxation approach. We show, using an existing biocircuit, that the identification method can systematically characterize the uncertainty of parameters. Finally, we discuss how we can integrate the set-based identification method into a robust biocircuit design problem.
Biography: Yutaka Hori received B.E., M.I.Sc.T. and Ph.D. degrees in information science and technology from the University of Tokyo in 2008, 2010 and 2013, respectively. In 2010-2011, he was a visiting student at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently a JSPS postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Richard Murray at California Institute of Technology. His research interests lie in feedback control theory of networked dynamical systems and synthetic biology. He is a recipient of Annual Conference Young Authorâs Award at ICROS-SICE International Joint Conference in 2009 and a Finalist of Best Student Paper Award at IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control in 2010 and Best Paper Award at Asian Control Conference in 2011.
Host: Dr. Ashutosh Nayyar and the Ming Hsieh Institute
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 11, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kevin K. Chen , Viterbi Fellow in the Department of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Talk Title: Low Mach Number Simulation of Turbulent CombustionOptimal Actuator and Sensor Placement for Feedback Flow Control
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: Feedback control has an enormous potential to manipulate fluid flows in desirable ways. It may one day effect, for instance, a significant improvement in vehicle performance and efficiency. One fundamental question has remained unanswered, however: where should the feedback system's actuators and sensors be located in the flow? The state of the art is shockingly insufficient; the vast majority of flow control studies use trial and error, or otherwise flawed heuristics.
In this seminar, we will explore why some actuator and sensor placements are more effective than others. Specifically, we will examine the optimal control of the Ginzburg-Landau and Orr-Sommerfeld/Squire equations, using localized actuators and sensors. By implementing a novel algorithm for the gradient of a control performance measure with respect to actuator and sensor positions, we can iterate efficiently toward optimal positions in these fluid flow models. The control theoretical and physical interpretations of the optimal placements yield a set of heuristics that may help control designers predict effective actuator and sensor placements. In particular, we will discuss the respective pros and cons of heuristics based on fundamental control limitations, eigenmodes, sensitivity to spatially localized feedback, optimal growth, and impulse responses.
Biography: Kevin Chen is presently a Viterbi Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California, in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department. He attended Caltech as an Axline Scholar, where he received a B.S. with Honor in Engineering and Applied Science, with a focus in Aeronautics, in 2009. At Caltech, he conducted research in experimental and computational fluid dynamics with Mory Gharib, Beverley McKeon, and Tim Colonius. He attended Princeton University as a Gordon Y. S. Wu fellow, where he received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2011 and 2014, respectively, under the advising of Clancy Rowley and Howard Stone. He has received support from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the DOD NDSEG and NSF GRFP fellowships, and awards from Caltech and Princeton University. Kevin's primary research interest is the development of feedback flow control, where fluid mechanics intersect with modern control theory, stability theory, dynamical systems, and computational methods.
Host: Paul Ronney
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
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CS Colloquium: Bilge Mutlu
Thu, Feb 12, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bilge Mutlu, TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Series: CS Colloquium
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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CS Colloquium: Bilge Mutlu (University of Wisconsin-Madison) - Human-Centered Methods and Principles for Designing Robotic Products
Thu, Feb 12, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bilge Mutlu, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Talk Title: Human-Centered Methods and Principles for Designing Robotic Products
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: The increasing emergence of robotic technologies that serve as automated tools, assistants, and collaborators promises tremendous benefits in everyday settings from the home to manufacturing facilities. While robotic technologies promise interactions that can be far more complex than those with conventional ones, their successful integration into the human environment requires these interactions to be also natural and intuitive. To achieve complex but intuitive interactions, designers and developers must simultaneously understand and address computational and human challenges. In this talk, I will present my group's work on building human-centered guidelines, methods, and tools to address these challenges in order to facilitate the design of robotic technologies that are more effective, intuitive, acceptable, and even enjoyable. In particular, I will present a series of projects that demonstrate how a marrying of knowledge about people and computational methods can enable effective user interactions with social, assistive, and telepresence robots and the development of novel tools and methods that support complex design tasks across the key stages of the design process. I will additionally present ongoing work that applies these guidelines to the development of real-world applications of robotic technology as well as future directions in enabling the successful integration of these technologies into everyday settings.
Biography: Bilge Mutlu is an assistant professor of computer science, psychology, and industrial engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute in 2009. His background combines training in interaction design, human-computer interaction, and robotics with industry experience in product design and development. Dr. Mutlu is a former Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the NSF CAREER award as well as several best paper awards and nominations, including HRI 2008, HRI 2009, HRI 2011, UbiComp 2013, IVA 2013, RSS 2013, and HRI 2014. His research has been covered by national and international press including the NewScientist, MIT Technology Review, Discovery News, Science Nation, and Voice of America. He has served in the Steering Committee of the HRI Conference and the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, co-chairing the Program Committees for HRI 2015, ROMAN 2015, and ICSR 2011 and the Program Sub-committees on Design for CHI 2013 and CHI 2014.
Host: Maja Mataric'
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/742507965Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/742507965
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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CiSoft Seminar
Thu, Feb 12, 2015 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mr. Jim Crompton, founder of Reflections Data Consulting and Chevron Fellow Emeritus
Talk Title: Big Data and the Internet of Things meet Oil and Gas
Series: CiSoft Seminar
Host: CiSoft
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Please RSVP: legat@usc.edu
Contact: Juli Legat
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Epstein ISE Department Seminar
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jason D. Lee, PhD Candidate, Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University
Talk Title: Selective Inference via the Condition on Selection Framework and Communication-efficient Sparse Regression
Abstract: Selective Inference is the problem of testing hypotheses that are chosen or suggested by the data. Inference after variable selection in high-dimensional linear regression is a common example of selective inference; we only estimate and perform inference for the selected variables. We propose the Condition on Selection framework, which is a framework for selective inference that allows selecting and testing hypotheses on the same dataset. In the case of inference after variable selection (variable selection by lasso, marginal screening, or forward stepwise), the Condition on Selection framework allows us to construct confidence intervals for regression coefficients, and perform goodness-of-fit testing for the selected model.
In the second part of the talk, we consider the problem of sparse regression in the distributed setting. The main computational challenge in a distributed setting is harnessing the computational capabilities of all the machines while keeping communication costs low. We devise an approach that requires only a single round of communication among the machines. We show the approach recovers the convergence rate of the (centralized) lasso as long as each machine has access to an adequate number of samples.
Biography: Jason Lee is a fifth year PhD student in Stanford University advised by Trevor Hastie and Jonathan Taylor. His research interests are in high-dimensional statistics, selective inference, optimization, and machine learning. In 2010, he graduated from Duke University with a BS in Mathematics, under the supervision of Mauro Maggioni. Jason received the NDSEG, NSF, and Stanford graduate fellowships.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: Seminar-Lee_Jason.doc
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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AI Seminar-Metaphor: Linguistic Anthropology Meets Computational Linguistics
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jerry Hobbs and Suzanne Wertheim, USC/ISI
Talk Title: Metaphor: Linguistic Anthropology Meets Computational Linguistics
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: Metaphors are more than just colorful or poetic linguistic expressions. They are also cognitive models that permeate both thought and speech, comparing categories and scenarios, and contributing to the shared set of understandings that we commonly refer to as âculture.â The MICS project, led by ISI since 2011, has been researching and creating solutions to problems posed by natural language processing of metaphor. When in Year 3 of the program, the focus was shifted from automatic metaphor identification and categorization to automated cross-cultural comparisons, computer science alone was not enough to solve the problems posed by the new tasking. In this talk, we will describe the collaboration between linguistic anthropology and computational linguistics that resulted both in a new theoretical framework of metaphorical structure and in a successful end-to-end system that produces meaningful category comparisons with minimal human interference.
Biography: Jerry Hobbs Bio:
Dr. Jerry R. Hobbs is a prominent researcher in the fields of computational linguistics, discourse analysis, and artificial intelligence. He earned his doctor's degree from New York University in 1974 in computer science. He has taught at Yale University and the City University of New York. >From 1977 to 2002 he was with the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International, Menlo Park, California, where he was a Principal Scientist and Program Director of the Natural Language Program. He has written numerous papers in the areas of parsing, syntax, semantic interpretation, information extraction, knowledge representation, encoding commonsense knowledge, discourse analysis, the structure of conversation, and the Semantic Web. He has done groundbreaking work in the areas of granularity, representing qualitative concepts, encoding commonsense psychology, and interpreting natural language using abduction. He is the author of the book "Literature and Cognition", and was also editor of the book "Formal Theories of the Commonsense World". He led SRI's text-understanding research, and directed the development of the abduction-based TACITUS system for text understanding, and the FASTUS system for rapid extraction of information from text based on finite-state transducers. The latter system constituted the basis for an SRI spinoff, Discern Communications. In September 2002 he took a position as research professor and ISI Fellow at the Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, where he is now a Chief Scientist. He has been a consulting professor with the Linguistics Department and the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University. He has served as general editor of the Ablex Series on Artificial Intelligence. He is a past president of the Association for Computational Linguistics, and is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In January 2003 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. In August 2013 he received the Association for Computational Linguistics Lifetime Achievement Award.
Suzanne Wertheim Bio:
Since completing her Ph.D. at Berkeley, Suzanne Wertheim has taught both linguistics and linguistic anthropology at Northwestern, Georgetown, and UCLA. Dr. Wertheim has been collaborating with computer scientists since 2007, and in 2011, she founded Worthwhile Research & Consulting, which specializes in research involving language and culture. Her research interests include the intersection of linguistic anthropology and AI; intercultural communication; bilingualism; and language and gender.
Host: Ashish Vaswani
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=67b78c7d28ce4e0da1029e7af24445d81dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=67b78c7d28ce4e0da1029e7af24445d81d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
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EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Alberto Tosi and Federica Villa, Politecnico di Milano - Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria
Talk Title: Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes
Abstract: Photon counting is the technique of choice for attaining the ultimate sensitivity in measurements of optical signals. Thanks to the Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting (TCSPC) technique, it is possible to measure optical waveforms with high sensitivity on very fast (picosecond) time scale. Photon counting and timing was introduced and developed with PMTs, but it received new impulse from solid-state detectors, the Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPAD).
SPADs exploit the avalanche phenomenon in a junction with an approach drastically different from the linear amplification of ordinary Avalanche PhotoDiodes (APD). In response to a single photon, a SPAD produces a standard current pulse with macroscopic size and fast rise, which marks the arrival time of the photon with precision of a few tens of picoseconds.
Nowadays, silicon SPADs (both single point and arrays) and InGaAs/InP SPADs are well developed and are commercially available, while new solutions are under development for attaining even better performance.
Silicon SPADs are employed in a wide range of emerging applications in chemistry, biology, medicine, material science, and physics. Commercially-available modules are regularly employed in many experimental setups and proved to be a reliable and high-performance solution for single-photon counting. Recently, gated mode operation of silicon SPADs with very fast rising edge (hundreds of ps) has been successfully exploited in order to widen the dynamic range and speed-up acquisition time in time-resolved measurements.
CMOS SPAD arrays based on smart pixels (that include counting and timing circuitry) are the basis for a single-photon counting cameras with very high frame rate and single-photon sensitivity. Such cameras can be used also for 3D acquisitions thanks to the capability to measure the distance from the objects in the scene.
Recently, remarkable effort has been devoted to the extension of single photon techniques to the near infrared (NIR) spectral range, developing SPADs in InGaAs/InP semiconductors for longer wavelengths, up to 1.6 um. The driving force comes from various application fields, such as: quantum key distribution (QKD) for cryptography in optical fiber communication systems, non-invasive measurement of signals in VLSI chips, eye-safe laser ranging (LIDAR), Raman spectroscopy, Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry (OTDR), PhotoDynamic Therapy (PDT), time-resolved spectroscopy and other fluorescence decay analysis.
Biography: Alberto Tosi was born in Borgomanero, Italy, in 1975. He received the Master's degree in electronics engineering and the Ph.D. degree in information technology engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. He has been Associate Professor of Electronics at Politecnico di Milano since 2014. In 2004, he was a student with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, working on optical testing of CMOS circuits. Currently, he works on silicon, InGaAs/InP and Ge-on-Si single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). He develops single-point detectors, arrays of SPADs for 2D/3D applications, and related microelectronics and instrumentation.
Federica Villa received the B.Sc. degree in biomedical engineering and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, in 2008, 2010, and 2014, respectively. In 2010, she interned in the Biochemistry Department, University of California, Los Angeles. She is research associate at Politecnico di Milano and her current research interests include designing CMOS SPAD imagers for 2-D imaging of fluorescence decays and 3-D ranging through on-chip direct time-of-flight method, by means of in-pixel time-to-digital converters.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Bil Clemons, Professor of Biochemistry, Caltech
Talk Title: Making a Greasy Protein: A Molecular View of Membrane Protein Biogenesis
Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Munushian Seminar
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Stephen Chou, Princeton University
Talk Title: âNanostructure Engineering -- A Unique Path to Discovery and Innovation"
Abstract: New advances in engineering nanostructures open up a unique path to discovery and innovation as well as commercialization. This is because (a) as nanostructures become smaller than a fundamental physical length scale, conventional theory may no longer apply, leading to new phenomena, new knowledge, and revolutionary products in a broad range of disciplines; and (b) new high-throughput and low-cost nanomanufacturing methods will not only accelerate R&D, but also are essential to turn inventions in laboratories into commercial products.
The presentation will give some examples of the authorâs research; particularly, (i) nanodevices (e.g. nano-transistors, new magnetic data storage paradigm (bit-patterned media), new high-efficiency solar cells and LEDs enhanced by nanoplasmonics, and (ii) path-changing high-throughput manufacturing methods (e.g. nanoimprint and self-perfection by liquefaction (SPEL)).
Biography: Stephen Y. Chou, Joseph C. Elgin Professor of Engineering, head of NanoStructure Laboratory at Princeton University, PhD from MIT (1986), a member of US National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of other 30 awards. Dr. Chou is recognized as a world leader, pioneer and inventor in a broad range of nanotechnologies. His work and inventions over 30 years have shaped new paths and opened up new fields in nanofabrication, nanoscale devices and materials (electrical, optical, magnetic, biological), and have significantly impacted both academia and industry.
Dr. Chouâs most well-known invention is nanoimprint (a paradigm-shift method for nanofabrication, which has become a large industry and a key corner-stone in todayâs nanomanufacturing in many industries). His other inventions include new nanotransistors/memories, patterned medium (a new paradigm for data storage), new subwavelength optical elemen
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/munushian/
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/munushian/
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NL Seminar- Efficient Computation of Substring Posteriors from Lattices using Weighted Factor Automata
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dogan Can, USC/SAIL
Talk Title: Efficient Computation of Substring Posteriors from Lattices using Weighted Factor Automata
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Efficient computation of substring posteriors from lattices has applications in the estimation of document frequencies in spoken corpora and lattice-based minimum Bayes-risk decoding in statistical machine translation. In this talk, we present a new algorithm for exact substring posterior computation that leverages the following observations to speed up computation: i) the set of substrings for which the posteriors will be computed typically comprises all n-grams in the lattice up to a certain length, ii) posterior probability is equivalent to expected count for substrings that do not repeat on any path of the input lattice, iii) there are efficient algorithms for computing expected counts from lattices. We present experimental results comparing our algorithm with the best known algorithm in literature as well as a baseline algorithm based on finite state automata operations.
Biography: Dogan Can is a fifth year Ph.D. student at USC SAIL (Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab). He works with Professor Shrikanth Narayanan on a range of topics including lattice indexing for spoken information retrieval, concurrent/online speech processing architectures and statistical modeling of psychotherapy sessions. His research interests include weighted finite state automata, automatic speech recognition, information retrieval, dialogue modeling and behavioral informatics.
Host: Nima Pourdamghani and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Flr Conf Rm # 689, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Astani Department CEE Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, Feb 13, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: MINA SUGINO, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan
Talk Title: Evaluation of dynamic behavior and seismic capacity of
Abstract: Many old wooden buildings collapsed in Kobe earthquake in 1995 or recent inland shallow earthquakes. In these earthquakes, âpulse-like ground motionsâ have been observed which caused severe damage to buildings. Meanwhile, there are many traditional wooden buildings forming a historical townscape in Japan. However, little is known about structural properties of traditional wooden buildings affect the response of the buildings against pulse-like ground motion and few buildings are conducted seismic capacity evaluation.
The objective of my research is to evaluate dynamic behavior of traditional wooden buildings and establish simplified maximum response evaluation method against pulse-like ground motions.
To understand which parameters of pulse-like ground motion affect the response of buildings dominantly, I have proposed a procedure to characterize pulse-like ground motions to simplified
waves as shown in Fig.1 consisting of only simple parameter; duration time, predominant period and maximum velocity.
Shaking table test of traditional wooden frames has been conducted to confirm the dynamic behavior of traditional wooden frames against pulse-like ground motion. From shaking table test
results, it is shown that equivalent natural period which is calculated from response acceleration can be useful to evaluate maximum displacement of wood frame as shown in Fig.2.
To establish simplified maximum response evaluation method, I have suggested a regression equation of dynamic deformation properties of traditional wooden buildings what equivalent natural frequency varies according to maximum deformation angle as shown in Fig.3 from seismic observation, shaking table test and static lateral loading test. Maximum response against expected pulse-like ground motion is easily evaluated from natural frequency which is obtained from microtremor measurement and dynamic deformation properties of traditional wooden buildings applying capacity spectrum method.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Feb 16, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: NO CLASS (PRESIDENT'S DAY)
Host: Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Epstein ISE Department Seminar
Tue, Feb 17, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Hoda Bidkhori, Lecturer and Postdoctoral Associate, Operations Research and Statistics Group, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Flexibility, Adaptability and Pareto Efficiency in Manufacturing Operations
Abstract: Process and operational flexibility have been widely applied in many industries as competitive strategies to improve responsiveness to demand uncertainty. The first part of this talk addresses the problem of managing process and operational flexibility in a fairly general manufacturing system. In our model, each plant might have a different cost for adding flexibility or extra capacity, and different costs for transporting its different products. We model this problem as an adaptive optimization problem and discuss different approaches to solve it efficiently. One of the features of our model is that it captures information about the uncertainty in the demand; different demand uncertainties lead to different design suggestions. We conclude this talk with several computational and theoretical results.
In the second part of the talk, we introduce a method for worst-case analysis of stochastic programming for a class of truncated distributions. We use this to evaluate the performance of general unbalanced process flexibility structures.
Biography: Hoda Bidkhori is a lecturer and postdoctoral associate in the Operations Research and Statistics group at MIT's Sloan School of Management. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from MIT. Her current research centers around decision making under uncertainty and the development and implementation of robust and computationally tractable solutions for problems arising in manufacturing and logistics. She is a recipient of the Roger Family Prizes at MIT for excellent mentorship, and Second and Third Prizes in the 8th and 9th International Competition for University Students.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: SEMINAR-Bidkhori.doc
Location: 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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From Systems to Networks: Theory and Computation for Distributed Predictive Control
Tue, Feb 17, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Melanie Zeilinger, University of California, Berkeley and the Empirical Inference Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Talk Title: From Systems to Networks: Theory and Computation for Distributed Predictive Control
Abstract: The control of a network of interacting dynamical systems is a central challenge for addressing a range of emerging application problems; examples include energy systems balancing a network of generation, load and storage devices, or robotic systems comprising a large number of components or agents. Utilizing the connectivity and interactions in the network by exploiting advances in communication and computation technologies offers the potential for pushing these systems to higher performance while increasing efficiency of operation, which will reduce system over-design and associated costs. However, safety requirements and high system complexity represent key limiting factors for leveraging these new opportunities.
This talk will present some of our recent work that brings high-performance control with hard guarantees on system safety to distributed systems, offering a scalable and modular approach that exploits interconnection effects and flexibly adjusts to network changes. A new framework for plug and play distributed predictive control will be introduced and we will discuss essential theoretical and practical aspects for certifying distributed decision-making based on an optimization-in-the-loop paradigm. We will show how the proposed scheme ensures the fundamental properties of stability and constraint satisfaction of the global system without recourse to any centralized coordination and even in the presence of online network changes, while allowing the control systems to optimize for performance. Application examples in area generation control and grid-aware electric vehicle charging will demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed theory. Lastly, we will address the computational aspects of the framework and present new results for certifying optimization with limited-precision computation or communication.
Biography: Melanie Zeilinger is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Marie Curie fellow in a joint program with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley and the Empirical Inference Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tuebingen, Germany. From 2011-2012 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Ãcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. She received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zurich in Switzerland in 2011, and the diploma in Engineering Cybernetics from the University of Stuttgart in Germany in 2006. She conducted her diploma thesis research at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2005-2006. She received the ETH medal for her dissertation in 2012 and was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship for Career Development by the European Commission in 2011. Her research interests are centered around real-time and distributed control and optimization, as well as safe learning-based control, with applications to energy distribution and management systems and human-in-the-loop control.
Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, EEB 540, x04667
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series
Tue, Feb 17, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Boris Defourny, Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Talk Title: Optimal Learning for a Class of Structured Problems
Abstract: While several methods exist to formulate decision making problems under uncertainty, sometimes we also have the opportunity to make experiments to make more informed decisions. For instance, consider a market survey that tries to identify consumersâ preferences prior to launching a new product. Optimal learning roughly refers to the task of selecting the best experiments to carry out, dynamically as we collect more information. Optimal learning comes in several flavors, depending on the experiments we can make and the model that produces the final decision we implement given the information collected. In this talk, we focus on certain classes of optimal learning problems and approximate solution approaches. We adopt a Bayesian perspective to model the information dynamics, and we develop methods adapted to special structures of interest in optimal learning. This work is motivated in part by the question of valuing information for a risk-averse decision maker.
Biography: Boris Defourny is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Lehigh University. His research interests are in the broad areas of stochastic optimization and machine learning, with a focus on energy systems analysis, electricity markets, and more generally, valuation of interconnected assets. Boris Defourny obtained his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Liege, in Belgium, and then worked as an associate professional specialist in the Operations Research and Financial Engineering department at Princeton University, prior to joining Lehigh in 2013.
More Information: Seminar-Defourny.docx
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Creativity in People and Computers
Wed, Feb 18, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo
Talk Title: Creativity in People and Computers
Abstract: Abstract: An idea is creative if it is new, valuable, and surprising. This talk will describe neural mechanisms for human creativity, including multimodal representations, binding of representations into new ones, and competition among them to become conscious. These mechanisms contrast with current computational models of creativity such as Chef Watson, but suggest how computers might become more creative.
Biography: Paul Thagard is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo.
His most recent books are The Brain and the Meaning of Life (Princeton University Press, 2010) and The Cognitive Science of Science: Explanation, Discovery, and Conceptual Change (MIT Press, 2012).
Host: Greg Ver Steeg
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th floor large conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
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Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Wed, Feb 18, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mingyue Ji, USC
Talk Title: Turning Memory into Bandwidth via Wireless Edge Caching: Fundamental Limits and Practical Challenges
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: Video is responsible for 66% of the 100x increase of wireless data traffic predicted in the next few years. Traditional methods for network capacity increase are very costly, and do not exploit the unique features of video. This talk gives a survey of a novel transmission paradigm based on the following two key properties: (i) video shows a high degree of asynchronous content reuse, and (ii) storage is the fastest-increasing quantity in modern hardware. Based on these properties, we suggest caching at wireless edge, namely, caching in helper stations (femto-caching) and/or directly into the user devices. We study two fundamentally different network structures: shared link caching networks and device-to-device (D2D) caching networks.
First, we present results based on network coded multicast delivery and/or D2D transmissions that show a âMooreâs lawâ for throughput: namely, in a certain regime of sufficiently high content reuse and/or sufficiently high aggregate storage capacity (sum of the storage capacity of all the users) in the network, the per-user throughput increases linearly, or even super-linearly with the cache size, and it is independent of the number of users for large network size, despite the fact that these users make independent and individual video files requests, i.e., the system does not exploit the naive broadcasting property of the wireless medium to send the same source to everybody. On the other hand, for both considered networks, we also provide information theoretic converse, by using which, we show that the proposed schemes achieves the order-optimal capacity. Then, we present the practical challenges and limitations of the achievable schemes. To overcome these challenges, for both network structures, we design novel polynomial-time complexity algorithms, which achieves near optimal performance such that they preserve the promised âMooreâs lawâ for throughput under realistic network parameter regimes.
Biography: Mingyue Ji is a final year PhD candidate at Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California (USC). His adviser is Professor Giuseppe Caire, and he is also very fortunate to collaborate with Professor Andreas Molisch during his PhD study. Prior to USC, he worked as a research engineer and finished his Master thesis at the Access Technologies and Signal Processing Group in Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden. He also obtained his Master of Science (MS) Degree in Electrical Engineering at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, and obtained his Bachelor Degree in Communication Engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar and the Ming Hsieh Institute
Location: EEB 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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CS Colloquium: Guy Rothblum (Stanford) - How to Verify Computations without Reexecuting Them
Thu, Feb 19, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Guy Rothblum, Stanford University
Talk Title: How to Verify Computations without Reexecuting Them
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Can we prove the correctness of a polynomial-time computation to a verifier who cannot re-execute the computation on its own? Such proof systems can be used in cloud computing scenarios, allowing weak devices (from phones and tablets to wearable or embedded devices) to delegate work and storage to a third party, without compromising the correctness of delegated computations. I will survey a line of work that answers this question, and constructs proof systems for delegating computations using the machinery of interactive proofs and cryptography.
Biography: Guy Rothblum is a researcher at Stanford University. He has wide interests in theoretical computer science, with a focus on cryptography, privacy-preserving data analysis, security and complexity theory. His research aims to promote a foundational understanding of computing under security, privacy, and reliability concerns.
Dr. Rothblum completed his Ph.D. at MIT, where his advisor was Shafi Goldwasser, and his M.Sc. at The Weizmann Institute of Science, where his advisor was Moni Naor. Until recently, he was a researcher at Microsoft Researchâs Silicon Valley Lab (2011-2014).
Host: Computer Science Department
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/537213719Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/537213719
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Epstein ISE Department Seminar
Thu, Feb 19, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nathan Kallus, PhD Candidate, Operations Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Talk Title: From Predictive to Prescriptive Analytics
Abstract:
We combine ideas from machine learning (ML) and operations research and management science (OR/MS) in developing a framework, along with specific methods, for using data to prescribe optimal decisions in OR/MS problems. In a departure from other work on data-driven optimization and reflecting our practical experience with the data available in applications of OR/MS, we consider data consisting, not only of observations of quantities with direct effect on costs/revenues, such as demand or returns, but predominantly of observations of associated auxiliary quantities. The main problem of interest is a conditional stochastic optimization problem, given imperfect observations, where the joint probability distributions that specify the problem are unknown. We demonstrate that our proposed solution methods, which are inspired by ML methods such as local regression (LOESS), classification and regression trees (CART), and random forests (RF), are generally applicable to a wide range of decision problems. We prove that they are computationally tractable and asymptotically optimal under mild conditions even when data is not independent and identically distributed (iid) and even for censored observations. As an analogue to the coefficient of determination R^2, we develop a metric P termed the coefficient of prescriptiveness to measure the prescriptive content of data and the efficacy of a policy from an operations perspective. To demonstrate the power of our approach in a real-world setting we study an inventory management problem faced by the distribution arm of an international media conglomerate, which ships an average of 1 billion units per year. We leverage both internal data and public online data harvested from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Google to prescribe operational decisions that outperform baseline measures. Specifically, the data we collect, leveraged by our methods, accounts for an 88% improvement as measured by our coefficient of prescriptiveness.
This is joint work with Dimitris Bertsimas, MIT.
Biography:
Nathan Kallus is a PhD candidate in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His interests lie at the intersection of optimization, operations, and management with statistics, machine learning, and data science. Nathan holds a BA in Mathematics and BS in Computer Science both from the University of California, Berkeley.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: SEMINAR-Kallus.doc
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium: Karthik Ramasamy (Twitter)
Thu, Feb 19, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Karthik Ramasamy, Twitter
Talk Title: Real Time Analytics @Twitter
Abstract: Real time analytics seems to be a buzz word these days. Twitter identified the need for real time analytics early on and invested in a massive data pipeline that collects, aggregates, processes large volumes of data in real time. At the heart of the pipeline is Twitter Storm, a real-time stream processing engine widely used in Twitter. Storm is used for real-time data analytics, time series aggregation, and powering real-time features like trending topics. In this talk, we will give an overview of real time analytics, discuss the twitter real time data pipeline and how Storm is used for extracting analytics. We will also discuss the challenges we faced and lessons we have learned while building this infrastructure at Twitter.
Biography: Karthik is the engineering manager and technical lead for Real Time Analytics @Twitter. He has two decades of experience working in parallel databases, big data infrastructure and networking. He cofounded Locomatix, a company that specializes in real timestreaming processing on Hadoop and Cassandra using SQL that was acquired by Twitter. Before Locomatix, he had a brief stint with Greenplum where he worked on parallel query scheduling. Greenplum was eventually acquired by EMC for more than $300M. Prior to Greenplum, Karthik was at Juniper Networks where he designed and delivered platforms, protocols, databases and high availability solutions for network routers that are widely deployed in the Internet. Before joining Juniper at University of Wisconsin, he worked extensively in parallel database systems, query processing, scale out technologies, storage engine and online analytical systems. Several of these research were spun as a company later acquired by Teradata.
He is the author of several publications, patents and one of the best selling book "Network Routing: Algorithms, Protocols and Architectures." He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UW Madison with a focus on databases.
Host: Shahram Ghandeharizadeh
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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MFD - Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Distinguished Lecture: Colin Wolden (Colorado School of Mines)
Thu, Feb 19, 2015 @ 12:45 PM - 02:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Colin Wolden, Colorado School of Mines, Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering
Talk Title: Interface Engineering of Advanced Contacts for High Efficiency CdTe Solar Cells
Series: Distinguished Lectures
Abstract: TBA
Host: Prof. Gupta
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ryan Choi
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium
Fri, Feb 20, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jonathan Gratch, Director for Virtual Human Research, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Talk Title: Interdisciplinary Research: Playing at the Boundary of Engineering, Psychology, and Business
Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Introduction to Internetworking
Fri, Feb 20, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mujtaba Khambatti, Bing Search Engine
Talk Title: Why do we care about Performance
Abstract: This talk will discuss Bings approach to web performance. Bing is known for its rich search experiences that powers over a third of all US search traffic (from Bing.com, Yahoo, Baidu, Siri, Windows search, and several mobile entry points). Despite the richness and the high volume of traffic, it remains a superfast site, delivering results within a couple blinks of an eye. This is possible due to a deep rooted culture that balances speed with a desire to deliver beautiful experiences to its users; and several technical investments to improve performance like browser side enhancements, rendering enhancements, network/CDN optimizations, and server optimizations. The talk will dive into details on several of these technology investments including how Bing is able to measure performance at scale for hundreds of millions of page views daily. Bingâs focus on improving search speed has shown a provable impact to user engagement and revenue thereby fueling an even greater investment in web performance across Bing. Mujtaba will also share some of the advanced creative ideas like HTTP2, smart network caching, and so on that are being explored with the intent to reduce all unneeded latency in the search experience. Bing believes in the quest to create engaging websites that are both beautiful and fast, something nearly all websites need to have. This talk will share an approach that is essential to the success of any web property (websites, web apps, services) in the new Web 2.0 world.
Biography: Dr. Mujtaba Khambatti is a Principal Program Manager Lead in the Bing team at Microsoft. He runs several engineering teams that power the engine of Bing. He currently runs the web performance team, the UX platform team that powers Bingâs experiences across tablet, mobile and desktop devices, the Bing API team that creates and manages access to Bing search via REST APIs, and the Agility/Core Engineering team. In the past he worked in Windows on various engineering teams doing work on OS reliability, servicing and security. Here he managed engineering of monthly security & non-security updates to 1 billion Windows users worldwide, built several features to improve key reliability concerns like: Recovery, Hang Reporting, Resource Exhaustion Prevention, and Reliability Monitor. He is the recipient of numerous corporate awards for team and technical success including 5 engineering excellence awards. Mujtaba received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Arizona State University (2003).
Host: Alefiya Hussain
Location: SLH 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Alefiya Hussain
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NL Seminar: Semantic Parsing as Machine Translation
Fri, Feb 20, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jonathan May, USC/ISI
Talk Title: Semantic Parsing as Machine Translation
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: We cast the generation of semantic graphs from natural language text as a machine translation problem, where the source language is English and the target language is a labeled graph representing a semantic interpretation, known as an Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR). Via a series of data transformations we create a training set that is amenable to a string-to-tree syntax mt decoder. Previous work in SBMT and AMR parsing is combined to yield a trainable system that achieves state-of-the-art parsing results.
Biography: Jonathan May is a computer scientist at USC-ISI, where he also received a PhD in 2010. His current focus areas are in machine translation, machine learning, and natural language understanding. Jonathan co-developed and patented a highly portable method for optimizing thousands of features in machine translation systems that has since been incorporated into all leading open source MT systems. He has previously worked in automata theory and information extraction and at SDL Language Weaver and BBN Technologies.
Host: Nima Pourdamghani and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Flr Conf Rm # 689, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
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Integrated Systems Seminar
Fri, Feb 20, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Dragan Maksimovic, University of Colorado
Talk Title: Distributed Power Electronics in Photovoltaic Power Systems
Series: Integrated Systems Seminar
Abstract: This talk is focused on power electronics in photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems. State of the art and emerging trends in PV system architectures are addressed, with emphasis on improvements in energy capture, efficiency, reliability, impact on reduced balance of system and installation costs, and increased levels of integration. Architectures based on distributed power electronics, including dc optimizers and microinverters, are highlighted. A new isolated-port system architecture is introduced, based on differential power processing submodule integrated dc-dc converters and simple distributed controls, leading to smart PV panels with integrated power management. It is shown how fine-granularity maximum power point tracking results in substantial improvements in energy capture in PV systems with mismatches due to partial shading, temperature gradients, dirt, tolerances, or ageing. Advantages of distributed differential power processing are verified by simulation and experimental results in representative scenarios, including rooftop and commercial-scale PV solar power systems.
Biography: Prof. Dragan Maksimovic received his Ph.D. degree from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1989. In 1992, he joined the University of Colorado at Boulder where he is currently a Charles V. Schelke Endowed Professor and Director of the Colorado Power Electronics Center (CoPEC) in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. Prof. Maksimovic is a Fellow of the IEEE and serves as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He is co-author of the textbook Fundamentals of Power Electronics, 2nd edition, Springer 2001. His current research interests include power electronics for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, high frequency power conversion using wide bandgap semiconductors, digital control of switched-mode power converters, as well as analog, digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits for power management applications.
Host: Hosted by Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mike Chen, and Prof. Mahta Moghaddam Organized and hosted by Run Chen
More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=915365
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elise Herrera-Green
Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=915365
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Epstein ISE Department Seminar
Mon, Feb 23, 2015 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Carlos Abad, PhD Candidate, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department, Columbia University
Talk Title: Efficient Management of Energy Resources
Abstract: One of the greatest challenges for humanity in the 21st century is to provide adequate energy to allow everyone on the planet to live decent lives, while managing the impact of a rising population and the decline in fossil fuels. In this talk, we will discuss two problems that arise in this context. The first one is faced by electric utilities in the US that use demand response (DR) to handle the supply-demand mismatch. Many DR programs are managed using automated DR devices (ADRs) that, upon receiving a signal from the utility, trigger strategies to reduce the consumption of customers. Most ADRs are one-way communication only; hence, the utility cannot know whether an ADR is reacting to its signal, and is forced to send repairmen periodically. We propose a method that infers the ADR state from meter readings, and uses the estimates to schedule the ADR maintenance near optimally, which results in cost savings of up to 80% with respect to the current practice. The second problem is faced by utilities providing power to isolated communities in sub-Saharan countries. Currently, these utilities use a very simple control. Based on the appliances in their household, customers are assigned individual power limits. In order to protect the micro-grid's power inverter, whenever a household consumption exceeds the assigned power limit, its electricity supply is interrupted. As overall usage can surpass the inverter capacity leading to a shutdown of the entire system, the operator faces a trade-off between revenue and reliability. We propose a robust optimization approach to the problem of dynamically assigning power limits to maximize the utility's revenue. Using the robust control policy can lead to as much as a 100% increase in revenue without sacrificing reliability. This is joint work with Garud Iyengar and Vijay Modi.
Biography: Carlos Abad is a PhD candidate in the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department at Columbia University. His work is focused on developing computational tools for effectively managing energy resources to achieve two goals: sustainability and reliability. Specifically, he is interested in designing algorithms that allow small residential loads participating in demand management programs to be effectively utilized at the grid level, and methods that allow some of the poorest people in the world to have access to a reliable source of energy at a reasonable price.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: SEMINAR-Abad.doc
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Viterbi/Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar
Mon, Feb 23, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Andrei Faraon, Applied Physics, Materials Science and Medical Engineering at California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Quantum light-matter interfaces based on rare-earthdoped crystals and nano-photonics
Abstract: Quantum light-matter interfaces that reversibly map the quantum state of photons onto the quantum states of atoms, are essential components in the quantum engineering toolbox with applications in quantum communication, computing, and quantum-enabled sensing. In this talk I present our progress towards developing on-chip quantum light-matter interfaces based on nanophotonic resonators fabricated in rare-earthdoped crystals known to exhibit the longest optical and spin coherence times in the solid state. We recently demonstrated coherent control of neodymium (Nd3+) ions coupled to yttrium orthosilicate Y2SiO5 (YSO) photonic crystal nano-beam resonator. The coupling of the Nd3+ 883 nm 4I9/2-4F3/2 transition to the nanoresonator
results in a 40 fold enhancement of the transition rate (Purcell effect), and increased optical absorption (~80%) - adequate for realizing efficient optical quantum memories via cavity impedance matching. Optical coherence times T2 up to 100 μs with low spectral diffusion were measured for ions embedded in
photonic crystals, which are comparable to those observed in unprocessed bulk samples. This indicates that the remarkable coherence properties of REIs are preserved during nanofabrication process. Multi-temporal mode photon storage using stimulated photon echo and atomic frequency comb (AFC) protocols were implemented in these nano-resonators. Our current technology can be readily transferred to Erbium (Er) doped YSO devices, therefore opening the possibility of efficient on-chip optical quantum memory at 1.5 μm telecom wavelength. Integration with superconducting qubits can lead to devices for reversible quantum conversion of optical photons to microwave photons.
Biography: Dr. Andrei Faraon is an Assistant Professor of Applied Physics, Materials Science and Medical Engineering at California Institute of Technology. After earning a B.S. degree in physics with honors in 2004 at California Institute of Technology, he received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Applied Physics both from Stanford University in 2009. At Stanford, Dr. Faraon was involved with seminal experiments on quantum optics
using single indium arsenide quantum dots strongly coupled to photonic crystal cavities in gallium arsenide. After earning his PhD, Dr. Faraon spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Hewlett Packard Laboratories. At HP he was involved with pioneering experiments on diamond quantum photonic devices coupled to solid-state spins. He demonstrated the first nano-resonators coupled to single nitrogen vacancy centers in mono-crystalline diamond. Faraon left HP in 2012 to become an Assistant Professor at Caltech. At Caltech, he set up a laboratory specialized in developing nano-photonic technologies for devices that operate close to the fundamental limit of
light-matter interaction. He is focused both on fundamental challenges on how to control the interaction between single atoms and single photons using nano-technologies, and on using nano-photonics to build cutting edge devices for bio-imaging, bio-sensing and photo-voltaic energy harvesting. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the AFOSR young investigator award.
Host: Viterbi/MHI
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Feb 23, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Daniel Holland, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow) & Thai Truong, PhD (Senior Scientist), Translational Imaging Center (USC Dornsife & Viterbi, Fraser Lab)
Talk Title: Light sheet microscopy - a versatile tool for biological imaging
Abstract: Biological research has always dreamed of being able to image every single cell in a live intact multicellular system, quantify the cellular behavior and gene expressions, follow the interactions among cells and between cells and the environment, and use the collected information to build a quantitative and predictive understanding. We will present our efforts toward realizing this dream, utilizing the unique imaging platform of light sheet microscopy, also known as selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM). As the name implies, SPIM uses a planar sheet of light to illuminate a sample, generating fluorescence over a thin optical section of the sample that is then collected by a wide-field imaging camera oriented orthogonal to the light sheet. We will explain how this simple twist in illumination geometry allows SPIM to have distinct advantages over conventional optical imaging techniques in imaging, at cellular resolution or better, live, fast, and/or large biological samples. We will describe past, current, and future work in our lab in developing and applying this imaging technology, including looking at morphogent gradient dynamics in developing embryos; dynamic motion of developing embryonic hearts; and understanding the synaptic neuroplasticity involved in sleep/wake and learning.
Host: Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Astronautical Engineering Seminar
Mon, Feb 23, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Astronautical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ed Stanton, NASA Kennedy Space Flight Center
Talk Title: Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 Post Mission Overview
Abstract: Mr. Stanton will discuss a Post Mission Overview of the Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1). He will describe the manufacturing, launch, mission, and splash down of the EFT-1 vehicle. He will also give a brief overview of what is next for the Orion program.
Biography: Ed Stanton is lead technical operations engineer in the Orion Production Operations Office at the Kennedy Space Center. He is responsible for facilitating the successful completion of manufacturing activities required to build the Orion spacecraft articles including the crew module, the service module and the launch abort system. He provides NASA oversight of the prime contractor Lockheed Martin and obtains insight of the Orion production status. This includes providing operational, electrical, fluids and mechanical engineering expertise, along with general project management skills in support of the assembly, integration, testing, and launch operations of the Orion spacecraft.
Ed started his career at the NASA Johnson Space Center (1990-1997) in Houston, TX working Shuttle Approach and Landing software loads, then Secondary payloads, and later on the International Space Stationâs (ISS) Robotic workstation. Ed then worked at NASA Ames Research Center (1997-2004) Mountain View, CA on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy Aircraft and on a proposal program to study Marsâ weather. For a year in 2004 while at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Ed worked to define Constellation requirements. Since 2005 Ed has worked at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida starting as an ISS Ground Operations Engineer ISS and in 2007 started the Orion Production Operations tasks where he continues to work.
Host: Dan Erwin
More Info: http://astronautics.usc.edu/EdStanton.pdf
Location: VHE 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Dan Erwin
Event Link: http://astronautics.usc.edu/EdStanton.pdf
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CS Colloquium: Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick (UC Berkeley)
Tue, Feb 24, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick, UC Berkeley
Talk Title: Structured Models for Unlocking Language Data
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: One way to provide deeper insight into data is to reason about the underlying causal process that produced it. I'll present model-based approaches for discovering and managing language data that incorporate rich causal structure in novel ways. First, I'll describe a new approach to automatic text summarization that incorporates syntactic structure into a decision process that learns from human summaries. Second, I'll describe an approach to historical document recognition that uses a statistical model of the historical printing press to reason about images, and, as a result, is able to decipher historical documents in an unsupervised fashion. I'll hint at how similar approaches can be used for a range of other problems and types of data.
Event will be available to stream HERE
Biography: Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick is a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He works with professor Dan Klein on using machine learning to understand structured human data, including language but also sources like music, document images, and other complex artifacts. Taylor completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics and computer science at Berkeley as well, where he won the departmental Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize in mathematics. As a graduate student, Taylor has received both the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Host: Computer Science Department
More Info: https://bluejeans.com/853935926
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
Event Link: https://bluejeans.com/853935926
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Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series
Tue, Feb 24, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Michael C. Ferris, Professor of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Talk Title: Modeling and Optimization within Interacting Systems
Abstract: We consider models built up from a collection of optimizations within an interacting physical, economic or virtual system. We show how optimization and equilibrium concepts can be deployed and resulting models solved within an extended mathematical programming framework. Examples are drawn from sustainable land use modeling, power system design and economic operation, discrete Nash equilibria and risk analysis. The interplay between stochasticity, complementarity and hierarchical optimization will be highlighted.
Biography: Michael C. Ferris is Professor of Computer Sciences and leads the Optimization Group within the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, England in 1989.
Dr. Ferris' research is concerned with algorithmic and interface development for large scale problems in mathematical programming, including links to the GAMS and AMPL modeling languages, and general purpose software such as PATH, NLPEC and EMP. He has worked on several applications of both optimization and complement-arity, including cancer treatment plan development, radiation therapy, video-on-demand data delivery, economic and traffic equilibria, structural and mechanical engineering.
Ferris is a SIAM fellow, an INFORMS fellow, Ferris is a SIAM fellow, an INFORMS fellow, received the Beale-Orchard-Hays prize from the Mathematical Programming Society and is a past recipient of a NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He serves on the editorial boards of Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Optimization, Transactions of Mathematical Software, and Optimization Methods and Software.
More Information: Seminar-Ferris.docx
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium: Andrea Thomaz (GATECH) - Robots Learning from Human Teachers
Wed, Feb 25, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andrea Thomaz, Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Robots Learning from Human Teachers
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: In this talk I present recent work from the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at Georgia Tech.
Our research aims to computationally model mechanisms of human social learning in order to build robots and other machines that are intuitive for people to teach. We take Machine Learning interactions and redesign interfaces and algorithms to support the collection of learning input from naive humans. This talk covers results on building computational models of reciprocal interactions, high-level task goal learning, low-level skill learning, and active learning interactions using humanoid robot platforms.
The lecture will be available for live streaming HERE.
Biography: Andrea L. Thomaz is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs the Socially Intelligent Machines lab, which is affiliated with the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM). She earned a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, and Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in 2002 and 2006. Dr. Thomaz has published in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Human-Robot Interaction. She received an ONR Young Investigator Award in 2008, and an NSF CAREER award in 2010. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, on NOVA Science Now, she was named one of MIT Technology Reviewâs TR 35 in 2009, and on Popular Science Magazineâs Brilliant 10 list in 2012.
Host: Computer Science Department
More Info: https://bluejeans.com/677132238
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
Event Link: https://bluejeans.com/677132238
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Computer engineering seminar
Wed, Feb 25, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Farinaz Koushanfar, Rice University
Talk Title: Engineering scalable privacy-preserving big and dense data analytics
Abstract: Data analytics on massive and often sensitive contents regularly arise in various contemporary settings ranging from cloud computing and social networking, to online services, mobile applications, and distributed processing. In this talk, I present novel computer engineering-based solutions that uniquely enable efficient and scalable explorations of the underlying patterns and dependencies present across a complex dataset, with a focus on sensitive privacy-preserving applications. The first part of the talk addresses the challenge of minimizing the computing, storage and communication overhead of the learning algorithms down to the limits of data subspaces and underlying heterogeneous platform. I demonstrate data-aware, domain-specific methodologies that are applicable to a broad class of iterative matrix-based learning algorithms and particularly efficient for challenging datasets with dense dependencies. The new techniques and methods enable optimizing for hardware acceleration as well as real-time stream processing, while they simultaneously benefit the privacy-preserving computing by pushing the limits of costly data analytics to the theoretical bounds. The second portion of the talk discusses novel scalable engineering solutions for privacy preserving computing by Yao's Garbled Circuit (GC) allowing two parties to jointly compute a function while keeping their inputs private. In contrast with the existing (software based) GC methods, I illustrate how scalable and efficient GC computation can be achieved by leveraging a new folded function description and logic synthesis methods along with our created custom libraries and constraints.
Evaluation results of our methodologies show significant improvements in memory footprint, network bandwidth, and the overall computing cost in terms of time and energy (power) compared with the prior art, often by orders of magnitude. Our scalable privacy-preserving approach enables us to implement functions that have not been reported before, small enough that they befit mobile/embedded devices. To facilitate automated end-to-end implementation, we provide a number of user-friendly APIs supported by our custom libraries. I discuss how our new findings will enable practically addressing several known classical challenges as well as exciting applications such as scalable privacy-preserving classification of visual content, secure data mining, and search.
Biography: Farinaz Koushanfar is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, where she directs the Adaptive Computing and Embedded Systems (ACES) Lab. She also serves as the: principal director of the TI DSP Leadership University program; and, as the associate partner of the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Secure Computing. She received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of California Berkeley. Her research interests include embedded/cyber-physical systems (CPS) security, hardware trust, adaptive and customizable embedded systems design, and secure function evaluation. Professor Koushanfar received a number of awards and honors for her research, mentorship, and teaching including the PECASE from president Obama, ACM SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award, NAS Kavli fellowship, Cisco IoT Security Grand Challenge Award, Young faculty/CAREER awards from NSF, DARPA, ONR, ARO, MIT Technology Review TR-35, and a Best Student Paper Award at ACM SIGMOBILE (Mobicom).
Host: Prof. Massoud Pedram
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Wed, Feb 25, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Negar Kiyavash, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: A Timing Approach to Causal Network Inference
Series: CommNetS
Abstract: One of the paramount challenges of this century is that of understanding complex, dynamic, large-scale networks. Such high-dimensional networks, including communication, social, financial, and biological networks, cover the planet and dominate modern life. In this talk, we propose novel approaches to inference in such networks, using timing as an underutilized degree of freedom that provides rich information. We present a framework for learning the structure of the directed information graphs. These graphs are a new type of probabilistic graphical model based on directed information that succinctly capture casual dynamics among random processes in stochastic networks. In the presence of large data, we propose algorithms that identify optimal or near-optimal approximations to the topology of the network.
Biography: Negar Kiyavash is Willett Faculty Scholar at the University of Illinois and a joint Associate Professor of Industrial and Enterprise Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) and the Information Trust Institute. She received her Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006. Her research interests are in design and analysis of algorithms for network inference and security. She is a recipient of NSF CAREER and AFOSR YIP awards and the Illinois College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar and the Ming Hsieh Institute
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 25, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Alejandra Uranga, Research Engineer in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Talk Title: Recent Research in CFD and Aerodynamics
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: This talk will present two research areas in aerodynamics. The first part will focus on the simulation of flows around straight and swept wings with separation-bubble transition at low Reynolds numbers. The findings are relevant to the design of Micro Air Vehicles and the study of animal flight. We use an Implicit Large Eddy Simulation approach with a high-order Discontinuous Galerkin finite element method. The physical formulation is based only on first principles, and does not rely on explicit empirical subgrid models. The simulations were used to quantify the relative importance of Tollmien-Schlichting and Cross-Flow wave instabilities for a range of wing sweep angles. We also demonstrate the importance of non-linear TS and CF instability interactions for intermediate sweep angles.
In the second part of this presentation we will present recent theoretical and experimental work targeting new energy-efficient transport aircraft. Novel configurations together with boundary layer ingesting propulsion promise very large savings in fuel burn even with current structural and engine technology. The experimental work is the first definitive measurement of the aerodynamic benefits of boundary layer ingestion for a realistic transport aircraft configuration.
Biography: Dr Alejandra Uranga is a Research Engineer in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She holds a MASc from the University of Victoria, BC, Canada, and a PhD degree from MIT. Her research has been in Computational Fluid Dynamics, specifically the modeling and simulation of turbulence and transition. She is currently the project Technology Lead for design, development, simulation, and wind tunnel testing of an advanced transport aircraft concept under the NASA N+3 program.
Host: Paul Ronney
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
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MFD - Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Graduate Seminar
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 12:45 AM - 01:50 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Masoud Soroush, Drexel University
Talk Title: Long-Term Academia-Industry Collaboration: The Drexel-DuPont Experience
Series: Graduate Seminar Series
Abstract: Long-term academia-industry research collaboration is rewarding but challenging.
Drexel and DuPont collaborated at different levels for more than a decade. What
began as a personal collaboration in multirate state estimation later evolved into a broad university-corporation collaboration in process systems engineering and
polymer engineering lasting more than a decade. In this talk, the evolution of this collaboration, in terms of the type of projects involved and the level of corporation participation, is described. The challenges and rewards of such a collaboration are described based on this collaboration experience. Results of collaborative projects involving multirate state estimation, instrument fault detection and identification, polymer reaction engineering, and quantum-chemical study of acrylate self-initiation reactions are presented.
Biography: Masoud Soroush is a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. He received his BS (Chemical Engineering) from Abadan Institute of Technology,Iran and his MS (Chemical Engineering), MS (Electrical Engineering: Systems), and PhD (Chemical Engineering) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was a Visiting Scientist at DuPont Marshall Lab 2002-03 and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University in 2008. His awards include the Faculty Early CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 1997, the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award from theAmerican Automatic Control Council in 1999, and the Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching from Drexel University in 1999. His research interests are in process systems engineering; mathematical modeling, analysis, and computational design and optimization of fuel cells, solar cells, and power storage systems; probabilistic modeling, risk assessment, and prediction of rare events; fault detection and identification; polymer engineering; and quantum chemical calculations. He was the AIChE Director on the American Automatic Control Council Board of Directors 2010-2013 and the AIChE CAST 10B Programming Coordinator in 2009.
Host: Prof. Sahimi
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ryan Choi
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Epstein ISE Department Seminar
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yuekai Sun, Ph.D. Candidate, Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University
Talk Title: Distributed Estimation and Inference for Sparse Regression
Abstract: We address two outstanding challenges in sparse regression: (i) computationally efficient estimation in distributed settings (ii) valid inference for the selected coefficients. The main computational challenge in a distributed setting is harnessing the computational capabilities of all the machines while keeping communication costs low. We devise an approach that requires only a single round of communication among the machines. We show the approach recovers the convergence rate of the (centralized) lasso as long as each machine has access to an adequate number of samples. Turning to the second challenge, we devise an approach to post-selection inference by conditioning on the selected model. In a nutshell, our approach gives inferences with the same frequency interpretation as those given by data/sample splitting, but it is more broadly applicable and more powerful. The validity of our approach also does not depend on the correctness of the selected model; i.e. it gives valid inferences even when the selected model is incorrect.
Joint work with Jason Lee, Qiang Liu, Dennis Sun, Jonathan Taylor
Biography: Yuekai is a fifth year Ph.D. student at Stanford University, advised by Michael Saunders in the operations research group and Jonathan Taylor in the statistics department. His research interests span high-dimensional statistics, machine learning, and mathematical optimization. He received his B.A. in 2010 from Rice University. Outside of school, he is an avid cyclist with the Stanford cycling team.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: SEMINAR-Sun.doc
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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CS Colloquium: Lydia E. Kavraki (Rice University) - Reasoning for Complex Physical Systems
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lydia E. Kavraki, Rice University
Talk Title: Reasoning for Complex Physical Systems
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Robots are rapidly evolving from simple instruments for repetitive tasks to increasingly sophisticated machines capable of performing challenging operations in our daily environment. As they make their way out of custom-made workspaces in factories, algorithms that integrate task and motion planning are needed to enable robots to autonomously execute high-level tasks. This talk will describe a novel framework for the synthesis of motion plans using specifications expressed in temporal logics and sampling-based motion planners. The power and extensibility of the framework has led to algorithmic advances for analyzing the motion and function of proteins, the worker molecules of all cells. The talk will conclude by discussing robotics-inspired methods for computing the flexibility of proteins and large macromolecular complexes with the ultimate goals of deciphering molecular function and aiding the discovery of new therapeutics.
The lecture will be available to stream HERE.
Biography: Lydia E. Kavraki is the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering at Rice University. Kavraki received her B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Crete in Greece and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Her research contributions are in physical algorithms and their applications in robotics, as well as in computational structural biology and biomedicine. Kavraki has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and a co-author of the popular robotics textbook "Principles of Robot Motion" published by MIT Press. She is heavily involved in the development of The Open Motion Planning Library, which is used in industry and in academic research in robotics and medicine. Kavraki is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. She was recently recognized with the Women in Science Award from BioHouston.
Host: Computer Science Department
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/889544076Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/889544076
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Energy Informatics Distinguished Seminar
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Yale Patt, University of Texas at Austin
Talk Title: Parallelism: A serious goal or a silly mantra (...and what about the End of the Von Neumann Architecture)
Series: Distinguished Lecture Series in Energy Informatics
Abstract: The microprocessor of 2025 will have two things going for it: more than 50 billion transistors on each chip and an opportunity to properly harness the transformation hierarchy. We hear a lot about the parallelism that one will get from those 50 billion transistors. In fact, almost everyone in the computer industry these days seems to be promoting parallelism, whether or not they have any clue whatsoever as to what they are talking about. And, many also are announcing the demise of the Von Neumann Architecture, whether or not they have any idea what the Von Neumann architecture is. Both pronouncements are due in large part to the highly visible and well advertised continuing (temporarily) benefits of Moore's Law, manifest by more and more cores on a chip, as well as more and more accelerators on the chip. More transistors means more cores, which translates into more opportunity for parallelism. More transistors also means more opportunity to build the wildest of accelerators, touted as non-Von Neumann architecture. By 2025, we will clearly have more than 1000 cores on a chip -- whether we can effectively utilize them or not does not seem to curb the enthusiasm. And by 2025, we will also have lots of powerful accelerators. But without Von Neumann, they won't be of much use. What I would like to do today is examine parallelism, note that it did not start with the multicore chip, observe some of the silliness it has recently generated, identify its fundamental pervasive element, and discuss some of the problems that have surfaced due to its major enabler, Moore's Law. I would also like to try to show how the transformation hierarchy, without any observable fanfare, can turn the bad news of Moore's Law into good news, both for all those cores and for all those non-Von Neumann accelerators, and play an important role in the microprocessor of 2025.
Biography: Yale N. Patt is Professor of ECE and the Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He continues to thrive on teaching both the large (400+ students) freshman introductory course in computing and advanced graduate courses in microarchitecture, directing the research of eight PhD students, and consulting in the microprocessor industry. Some of his research ideas (e.g., HPS, the two-level branch predictor, ACMP) have ended up in the cutting-edge chips of Intel, AMD, etc. and some of his teaching ideas have resulted in his motivated bottom-up approach for introducing computing to serious students. The textbook for his unconventional approach, "Introduction to Computing Systems: from bits and gates to C and beyond," co-authored with Prof. Sanjay Jeram Patel of Illinois (McGraw-Hill, 2nd ed. 2004), has been adopted by more than 100 universities world-wide. He has received the highest honors in his field for both his reasearch (the 1996 IEEE/ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award) and teaching (the 2000 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award). He was the inaugural recipient of the recently established IEEE Computer Society Bob Rau Award in 2011, and was named the 2013 recipient of the IEEE Harry Goode Award. He is a Fellow of both IEEE and ACM, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. More detail can be found on his web page www.ece.utexas.edu/~patt.
Host: Prof. Viktor Prasanna and the Ming Hsieh Institute
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/275381990Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/275381990
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Seminar Series
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Anuradha Annaswamy , MIT Mechanical Engineering
Talk Title: Decision and Control in Energy Cyber Physical Systems
Abstract: Any physical system with a rudimentary level of complexity includes interaction with a cyber structure that helps, monitors, predicts, or manages its function. As the level of complexity increases, this interaction between the cyber and physical components needs to be specific, systematic, nuanced, and robust. The field of study that pertains to these interactions, collectively known as
Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), is an emerging topic of significant attention both nationally and
globally. Several areas in science and technology including transportation, healthcare, energy generation and distribution, and manufacturing automation are witnessing significant research activities related to CPS. Our laboratory has focused on a key area in CPS, pertaining to fundamental decision and control tools for Smart Grid, an ideal example of a physical world interacting with the
cyberworld of computations and communications through control. The challenges due to increased
penetration of renewables, combined presence of uncertainties in both the cyber and physical world,
complexities due to the simultaneous control of several applications, limited resources, and complex
platform architectures, and stringent performance specifications have led us to the development of
novel methodologies. In this talk, I will present the underpinnings of such methods in energy CPS,
examples, and recent results.
Biography: Dr. Anuradha Annaswamy received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Yale
University in 1985. She has been a member of the faculty at Yale, Boston University, and MIT where
currently she is the director of the Active Adaptive Control Laboratory and a Senior Research Scientist
in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering. Her research interests pertain to adaptive control theory and applications to aerospace
and automotive control, active control of noise in thermofluid systems, control of autonomous
systems, decision and control in smart grids, smart cities, and critical infrastructures, and codesign of
control and platform architectures in cyber physical systems.
Dr. Annaswamy has received several awards including the George Axelby and Control Systems
Magazine best paper awards from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the Presidential Young
Investigator award from the National Science Foundation, the Hans Fisher Senior Fellowship from the
Institute for Advanced Study at the Technische Universität München in 2008, and the Donald Groen
Julius Prize for 2008 from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Dr. Annaswamy is a Fellow of the
IEEE and a member of AIAA.
Dr. Annaswamy is an active member of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) and the American
Automatic Control Council. She was a nominated and elected member of the CSS Board of Governors
for 1993 and 2010 to 2012, respectively. She was a Program Chair of the American Control
Conference (ACC) during 2003, General Chair of the 2008 ACC, and Program Chair for the 2nd
Virtual Control Conference on Smart Grid Technology. Currently she is the Vice President for
Conference Activities in the IEEE CSS Executive Committee.
Dr. Annaswamy is a co-editor of the IEEE CSS report on Impact of Control Technology: Overview,
Success Stories, and Research Challenges, 2011 (1st Edition) and 2014 (2nd Edition) along with Tariq
Samad. She is the project lead on the publication, âVision for Smart Grid Controls: 2030 and Beyond,â
(Eds: A.M. Annaswamy, M. Amin, C. DeMarco and T. Samad), 2013.
Host: Alefiya Hussain and Petros Ioannou
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Alefiya Hussain
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CS Colloquium: Sam Malek (George Mason University) - Automated Analysis and Testing of Mobile Software
Thu, Feb 26, 2015 @ 04:00 PM - 05:15 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Sam Malek , George Mason University
Talk Title: Automated Analysis and Testing of Mobile Software
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: App markets have fundamentally changed the way software is delivered to consumers, especially in the mobile domain. By providing a medium for reaching a large consumer base at a nominal cost, app markets have made it possible for small entrepreneurs to compete against prominent software companies. At the same time, since many of the entrepreneurs do not have the resources to employ proper software engineering practices, many apps provisioned on the markets are riddled with defects that not only inconvenience the users, but also easily exploited by attackers for nefarious purposes. In this talk, I first outline the architectural root cause of some of the security vulnerabilities found in Android. Afterwards, I describe a combination of static and dynamic program analysis techniques aimed at detecting such issues. Experimental evaluation of the tools realizing these techniques using real-world apps has been promising, resulting in their adoption for use by government and industrial collaborators. Finally, I conclude the talk with an outline of future research directions.
Biography: Sam Malek is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University. His general research interests are in the field of software engineering, and to date his focus has spanned the areas of software architecture, autonomic computing, software security, and software analysis and testing. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California and his B.S. degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California Irvine. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, GMU Emerging Researcher/Scholar/Creator award, and GMU Computer Science Department Outstanding Faculty Research Award. Malek is also a member of the DARPAâs Computer Science Study Group. He is currently serving on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and the Springer Journal of Computing.
Host: Neno Medvidovic
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Biomedical Engineering Seminar
Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Eunji Chung-Yoo, Ph.D., Research Associate at the Institute for Molecular Engineering University of Chicago
Talk Title: Molecular Engineering for Regenerative Medicine and Theranostic Applicationsâ
Abstract:
University of Southern California
Biomedical Engineering Seminar
âMolecular Engineering for Regenerative Medicine and Theranostic Applicationsâ
by,
Eunji Chung-Yoo, Ph.D.
Research Associate at the Institute for Molecular Engineering
University of Chicago
Thursday, February 26, 2015
11:00 AM in RTH 109 (Ronald Tutor Hall)
Abstract:
When designing bioactive materials to direct desired outcomes for regenerative medicine, the appropriate structural and functional properties at relevant hierarchical levels, including molecular, cellular, and tissue levels, must be taken into account. Furthermore, just as important is the intentional design of the biomaterial to be practical for the clinical setting, complementing available surgical techniques and emerging healthcare technology, while remaining safe and cost-effective. Biodegradable polymers, whether synthetic or natural, can act synergistically with self-assembly to design multi-dimensional, biomimetic biomaterials to address clinical needs. I will present how citric acid-based elastomers and nanocomposites can be tailored to meet a versatile range of materials properties that are optimal for use as implants for both soft and hard tissue regeneration. Parameters such as polymerization conditions, mechanical properties, surface architecture, and the particulate phase can alter the cellular and tissue response and thus be used to guide specific outcomes.
In addition to surgical implants, through the use of self-assembly, polymers can be used to complement minimally-invasive procedures. Specifically, I will present how natural polymers such as proteins and sugars can form bioactive interfaces such as membranes and encapsulating structures for adhesives and applications in 3-D printing. Moreover, through the rational design of peptide amphiphile micelles, multifunctional nanoparticle systems that can target, diagnose, and treat a variety of diseases including atherosclerosis and cancer will be presented. Taken together, molecular engineering has the potential to address limitations in clinical solutions and generate novel strategies that can deliver molecular signals to report back on or influence the behavior of the cellular niche, or regenerate complex tissues that is required of hierarchically-ordered organs.
Host: Biomedical Engineering
More Information: image.jpg
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium
Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mark Setrakian, Independent Roboticist
Talk Title: The Importance of Extracurricular Interests and Passions: Music and Fighting Robots
Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jeffrey Teng
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Spring 2015 Environmental Engineering Seminar Series
Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jim Mihelcic, University of South Florida
Talk Title: Envisioning a Better World: The Making of Community and Globally Impactful Engineers
Host: Katie Russo
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kaela Berry
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Integrated Systems Seminar
Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Tim LaRocca, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
Talk Title: TBD
Series: Integrated Systems Seminar
Host: Hosted by Prof. Hossein Hashemi, Prof. Mike Chen, and Prof. Mahta Moghaddam Organized and hosted by Run Chen
More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=915366
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elise Herrera-Green
Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/events/event-details/?event_id=915366
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar
Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Jim Mihelcic, University of South Florida
Talk Title: Envisioning a Better World: The Making of Community and Globally Impactful Engineers
Abstract: Welcome to the vision, a world where all have access to sanitation, potable water, and safe indoor air; where all children are able to learn in well built classrooms; where families no longer suffer from disease, starvation, and poverty; where renewable energy has replaced fossil fuels and engineers are part of the solution. In this talk Professor Mihelcic will provide his vision of training globally competent scientists and engineers, and also show what a water, sanitation, & hygiene (WASH) engineer does in a developing world setting. He will conclude by telling the story behind the cover of his book: Field Guide in Environmental Engineering for Development Workers: Water, Sanitation, Indoor Air and Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design (ASCE Press, 2009) which includes a forward by President Jimmy Carter.
Biography: Dr. Mihelcic is director of an EPA-funded National Research Center for nutrient management and the Peace Corps Masterâs International Program in CEE, which allows students to combine their graduate studies with service and research in the Peace Corps as water/sanitation engineers. His teaching and research interests are centered on sustainability, specifically understanding how global stressors influence water resources, water quality, water reuse and resource recovery, and selection and provision of water supply and sanitation infrastructure. Dr. Mihelcic is a board-certified Environmental Engineering Member, a member of the Environmental Protection Agencyâs Chartered Science Advisory Board, past president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, and current Board Trustee with the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists. He is also the lead author of three textbooks including Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design (John Wiley, 2014) and Field Guide in Environmental Engineering for Development Workers: Water, Sanitation, Indoor Air and Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design (ASCE Press, 2009).
Host: Dr. Amy Childress
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 124
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
