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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for March
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When Amdahl and Off-die Bandwidth Kill CMP Scaling: Two Tough Problems and Two Radical Solutions
Thu, Mar 01, 2007 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"When Amdahl and Off-die Bandwidth Kill CMP Scaling: Two Tough Problems and Two Radical Solutions"Murali AnnavaramNokia Research Center, Palo AltoAbstract:The continuous increase in transistor density coupled with the simultaneous reduction in chip power budget caused a major paradigm shift in the processor design. The chip industry is moving away from high frequency power hungry uniprocessors towards chip multiprocessors (CMPs) with many lower power cores. The road to CMP scaling, however, has two significant barriers. First, single threaded applications parallelized to take advantage of CMPs will have unavoidable phases of sequential execution. Amdahl's law dictates that the speedup of such parallel programs will be limited by the sequential portion of the computation. The second barrier to CMP scaling is that the off-die bandwidth requirement will grow dramatically as the working set of multi-threaded applications grows with the thread count. Furthermore, increased thread level parallelism results in reduced shared cache locality, as interleaved accesses from multiple threads appear random at the shared cache level. The twofold effects of increased working set size and reduced locality will place significant pressure on the limited number of pins to reach off-die memory.This talk focuses on these two problems and presents two radical solutions. In the first part of this talk, I will present Energy Per Instruction (EPI) throttling -- a novel mechanism for mitigating Amdahl's bottleneck by varying the amount of energy expended to process instructions according to the amount of available parallelism. When a program enters a sequential phase the EPI throttling mechanism assigns all available energy to a single processor so as to execute the sequential phase quickly; conversely, when a program enters a parallel phase energy is distributed to several cores within the CMP so as to process as many instructions in parallel as possible. More generally, using the equation, Power=Energy per instruction (EPI) * Instructions per second (IPS), EPI throttling proposes that during phases of limited parallelism (low IPS) the chip multi-processor will spend more EPI; similarly, during phases of higher parallelism (high IPS) the chip multi-processor will spend less EPI. The performance benefits of an EPI throttle are evaluated on an asymmetric multiprocessor (AMP) prototyped from a physical 4-way Xeon SMP server. Using a wide range of multi-threaded programs, I will show a 38% wall clock speedup using EPI throttled AMP compared to a standard SMP that uses the same power. In the second part of this talk, I will present 3D stacking technology that not only enables stacking large capacity DRAM caches on CMPs but also provides tremendous bandwidth using die to die vias. I will focus on the design challenges of stacking DRAM on CMPs. In particular, I will show that due to the limited DRAM banking the number of page opens increase dramatically as more threads access the DRAM cache. Using detailed simulation results, I will show that, contrary to popular belief, simply stacking a DRAM cache on a CMP does not provide the expected benefits of stacked memory. Using a PC-based stride prefetching mechanism I will show that random page access behavior can be mitigated thereby allowing 3D stacked DRAM to provide the necessary bandwidth and capacity required for CMP scaling.Speaker Bio:Murali Annavaram is a researcher at the Nokia research center in Palo Alto. His current research is focused on exploring mobile device features required for providing location and context-aware computing services. Prior to Nokia he was a senior research scientist at Intel microprocessor research labs where his research spanned the entire spectrum of systems architecture ranging from high level software issues to low level device variations. His research at Intel includes 3D stacking, EPI throttling for power efficient CMP designs, impact of process variability on chip designs, characterizing server workloads for improving simulation and tracing technologies. Murali received his PhD from University of Michigan working with Prof. Ed Davidson focusing on prefetching techniques for irregular applications.Hosted by: Prof. Michel Dubois, dubois@paris.usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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Battling Biases and Barriers: Lecture by Geraldine Richmond
Thu, Mar 01, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Chemist Geraldine Richmond will deliver a lecture, "Battling Biases and Barriers: Necessary Steps Our Academic Institutions Must Take To Assure a Strong Science and Engineering Workforce," to address the ways in which universities can work to achieve diversity.Professor Geraldine Richmond holds Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professorship in Chemistry at the University of Oregon. Her visit to USC is sponsored by the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program. Richmond is also known widely for her teaching and mentoring activities and has been nationally recognized for developing innovative methods for teaching science literacy courses. Her extensive international efforts in recruiting and mentoring women in the sciences at all levels have been recognized with many awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering Mentoring from the White House.In 1998, Richmond founded COACh, an organization to foster the career success of women scientists in academia. More than 700 women academic scientists from around the country have since participated in its highly effective programs.
Location: Ahmanson Center, Room 238 (ACB 238)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nicole Hawkes
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New Approaches in Large Systems: Theory and Algorithms
Thu, Mar 01, 2007 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chandra Nair, Microsoft ResearchAbstract: This talk will contain two parts: The dominant part, as the title suggests, will be about a novel and exciting interplay between various disciplines that has led to new approaches to solve problems in large systems. The second part will address a very well-known information theoretic open problem, i.e. determining the capacity region of a broadcast channel, and I shall present new outer bounds on the set of achievable rates that supersede the existing best known outer bounds.Large systems such as internet, large error correcting codes, gene networks, etc. present a new class of problems that are different from the traditional optimization problems in smaller systems. Instead of seeking exact answers, one is often satisfied with very good approximations that can be computed in an efficient, distributed and robust manner. Further due to the presence of a large system of interacting objects one also expects some generic macroscopic behavior to emerge. These constraints and effects are quite different from the behavior or premises under which the smaller systems have been studied and hence the traditional approaches are insufficient.Over the past few years new approaches from Spin Glass Theory, a branch of statistical physics, have been used to propose solutions and efficient algorithms for hard optimization problems in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and more recently in Biological networks. This talk will overview this interplay and focus on some examples: (i) The Random Assignment Problem (RAP), which arises in a variety of practical scenarios; notably in crossbar switch scheduling.
(ii) The Number Partitioning Problem (NPP), which models load balancing and multiprocessor scheduling.
(iii) Designing exact message passing algorithms on loopy graphs.In the first two examples listed above, I shall overview the resolutions of certain conjectures in these problems, conjectures that were motivated by heuristic arguments from Physics.In the second part of the talk, I will address a very traditional problem in multi-user information theory. This concerns obtaining the capacity region of a system with one transmitter and two receivers with private messages, called the broadcast channel, a problem that is still open. In this talk, I will show a new outer bound that is better than the previously best known outer bound due to Korner and Marton (1979).Biography: Chandra Nair is a Post-Doctoral researcher with the theory group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. He obtained his PhD from the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University in June 2005. He obtained the Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Madras. His research interests are in developing and applying tools from probability, combinatorics and statistical physics to solve discrete optimization problems that arise in large systems, esp. those in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and very recently, in biological systems. He is also interested in information theory, algorithm design, and networks. He has received the Stanford Graduate Fellowship(2000-2004) and Microsoft Graduate Fellowship(2004-2005) for his graduate studies, and he was awarded the Philips and Siemens(India) Prizes for his undergraduate studies.Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.eduLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Biodynamic Modeling of Legacy and Emerging Contaminants
Thu, Mar 01, 2007 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:
Dr. Pamela McLeod,
Stanford University,
Civil & Environmental EngineeringAbstract:
Understanding the biological uptake of xenobiotics from contaminated sediment and water remains an important challenge for scientists and engineers. Knowledge of uptake processes and mechanisms enables us to model contaminant bioaccumulation in target species – and also helps us design novel treatment strategies and predict the biological impact of perturbations to natural systems. My research advances biodynamic modeling as a tool to understand the uptake of organic contaminants to a variety of aquatic macro-invertebrates. Specifically, I will discuss uptake of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from contaminated field sediment to two clam species (Macoma balthica and Corbicula fluminea) and a worm (Lumbriculus variegatus). Through biodynamic modeling, I discerned the impact of organism feeding strategy on PCB uptake, and predicted decreases in bioaccumulation after the sediment was amended with activated carbon in the laboratory. Similarly, biodynamic modeling successfully predicted uptake of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) from contaminated field sediment by a mussel (Mytilus edulis) before and after activated carbon amendment. Finally, applying biodynamics to systems with laboratory-spiked perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and L. variegatus provided insights into the effects of PFC chain length and hydrophobicity on overall uptake and exposure pathways. In addition to these completed studies, I will discuss ongoing work in which we are exploring the ability of biodynamic modeling to (1) predict which types of organisms may recolonize a PCB-contaminated site following sediment remediation, and (2) understand the biological impacts of using PFC-contaminated recycled water for ecosystem restoration.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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The Cambria: A Performance by Donal OKelly
Thu, Mar 01, 2007 @ 08:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Critically acclaimed Irish actor and writer Donal O'Kelly performs The Cambria, about African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass's voyage to Ireland in 1845 on the eve of the potato famine.The Cambria was a transatlantic Cunard Line paddle-steamer. On August 10, 1845, the very eve of the great Irish Famine, escaped slave Frederick Douglass was among the passengers on the Cambria's Boston-Cork route. He had just published his life story, and it had become a bestseller. He was forced to flee with a high price on his head and he sought asylum in Ireland.For more information, please visit:http://www.usc.edu/webapps/events_calendar/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.861439&active_category=Upcoming
Location: Gin Wong Conference Center
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Daria Yudacufski
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Honors Program Colloquium: Designing USCs Galen Center
Fri, Mar 02, 2007 @ 01:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture given by Mr. Joseph Diesko, AIA, of HNTB Architecture.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students
Contact: Erika Chua
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Colorado River Aqueduct Inspecion Tour
Fri, Mar 02, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER:Ben Willardson, P.E.,
Los Angeles County Department of Public Works,
Water Resources DivisionABSTRACT The Colorado River Aqueduct is a vital feature in the water supply system for Southern California. The aqueduct system delivers water from the Colorado River to Lake Matthews in Riverside County. The water is then distributed by the Metropolitan Water District to its member agencies. This presentation results from a recent inspection tour of the Aqueduct and the facilities that help bring this important resource to the populated areas in Southern California. The presentation provides information on Parker Dam, construction and features of the aqueduct, and the construction of Diamond Valley Lake. The Colorado River Aqueduct was selected as one of the "Seven Wonders of American Engineering" by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1994.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Extracellular Electron Transport: Mechanism(s) and Applications
Fri, Mar 02, 2007 @ 02:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
THE MORK FAMILY DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCEPRESENTS A SEMINAR
BYKen Nealson
Wrigley Professor of Environmental Sciences Department of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences University of Southern CaliforniaonExtracellular Electron Transport: Mechanism(s) and Applicationsabstract Microbes constitute more than half the biomass on our planet  their immense success is, in large part, due to their ability to catalyze reactions at rates orders of magnitude higher than they would occur in the absence of life, using protein catalysts called enzymes. In particular, microbes are experts at electron transfer, seemingly being able to transfer an electron to any substrate that will accept one. Recently, it was discovered that microbes have the capacity to donate electrons to solid substrates (e.g., solid metal oxides or metal-rich clays), leading to rapid catalysis of these substrates via direct electron transport. One such organism, Shewanella oneidensis is seemingly the master of this type of metabolism, being capable of reduction of more than 15 different substrates, including iron and manganese oxides, metal rich clays, and even the anodes of fuel cells. The nature of the electron transfer process, while still being elucidated, shows hints of being something different from anything
previously observed. Under conditions of electron acceptor limitation, S.
oneidensis makes copious amounts of extracellular enzymes, as well as long extracellular structures (nanowires) that are highly conductive, and necessary for the reduction of solid metal oxides, and the production of current in microbial fuel cells. Results of recent studies of the nanowires and their properties will be discussed.Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce
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TransFormations III: Fiction Science
Sat, Mar 03, 2007
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
TransFormations is a yearlong series of events formed around four specific topics, each at the crossroads of four larger umbrella themes: art, technology, cognition and perception. In Fiction Science, writers, artists, scientists, directors, special-effects artists and cognitive scientists will come together to map out the territories between fiction and science and reality and fantasy, asking whether fictional worlds, hoaxes, satire and alternate histories can sometimes seem to be more "true-to-life" than reality itself. It is possible to elucidate the physical logic of these worlds as a critical problem? The virtualization of science in cinema extends into the disciplines of physics, biology, epidemiology, artificial intelligence and simulation in ways that pose important questions. For more information, please visit:http://www.usc.edu/webapps/events_calendar/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.861490&active_category=Upcoming
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Daria Yudacufski
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TransFormations III: Fiction Science
Sun, Mar 04, 2007
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
TransFormations is a yearlong series of events formed around four specific topics, each at the crossroads of four larger umbrella themes: art, technology, cognition and perception. In Fiction Science, writers, artists, scientists, directors, special-effects artists and cognitive scientists will come together to map out the territories between fiction and science and reality and fantasy, asking whether fictional worlds, hoaxes, satire and alternate histories can sometimes seem to be more "true-to-life" than reality itself. It is possible to elucidate the physical logic of these worlds as a critical problem? The virtualization of science in cinema extends into the disciplines of physics, biology, epidemiology, artificial intelligence and simulation in ways that pose important questions. For more information, please visit:http://www.usc.edu/webapps/events_calendar/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.861490&active_category=Upcoming
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Daria Yudacufski
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Probabilistic Binning Transforms with Applications to Computer Science and Coding Theory
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Olgica Milenkovic, University of Colorado, BoulderAbstract: Binning schemes are important combinatorial models used for studying problems arising in biology, financial market analysis, engineering, communication theory, and computer science. When analyzing random binning schemes, it is usually of interest to evaluate some statistics that depends on the characteristics of the distribution of objects (balls) into bins. Due to the inherent mutual dependence of the variables describing the occupancy of the bins, determining the statistics of interest may represent a challenging mathematical task. Often, asymptotic approximation techniques are used instead of a complicated - and usually intractable - exact analysis.We describe a class of invertible probabilistic transforms that result in mapping dependent bin occupancies into independent random variables. When using these transforms, certain statistics of interest can be evaluated in the transform domain and afterwards appropriately inverted to obtain exact expressions. Or, for problems with large parameter sizes, the behavior of the statistics can be deduced directly from the result in the transform domain by referring to a new class of Tauberian theorems. We demonstrate the application of the transform techniques on examples taken from theoretical computer science (finding closed form expressions for combinatorial sums), coding theory (analyzing raptor codes), and bioinformatics (demonstrating the non-randomness of certain repeats in DNA sequences).This is a joint work with Kevin Compton from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Biography: Olgica Milenkovic received her MS degree in mathematics and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2001 and 2002, respectively. In August 2002, she joined the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In the summer of 2005, she was a Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) Visitor at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. Currently, she is a Visiting Professor at the Center for Information Theory and Applications at the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include error-control and constrained coding, analysis of algorithms, combinatorics, probability theory, and bioinformatics. For the research on these subjects, she received the NSF Career Award and the DARPA Young Faculty Award.Host: Keith Chugg, chugg@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Measurement and methods of assessing the impact of prevalent particulate matter.....
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SEMINAR ORAL DEFENSE OFHarish Phuleria,
ENE Student"Measurement and methods of assessing the impact of prevalent particulate matter sources on air quality in Southern California".Abstract:Recent focus of studies on health effects of ambient particulate matter (PM) have suggested particle chemical composition in addition to particle size, shape and number concentration responsible for the observed health outcomes. However, chemical composition and size distribution of the atmospheric particles can be strongly affected by the differences in ambient temperature, relative humidity, photochemical activity and source contributions. This thesis is intended to demonstrate the importance of characterizing predominant PM sources from an exposure perspective and develop methods of assessing their impact on air quality in Southern California. A study of particle number concentration and size distribution showed seasonal and spatial variability in Southern California. While contribution of local vehicular emissions was most evident in winter, effects of long-range transport of particles and photochemical particle formation were enhanced during warmer periods. Ship emissions are found to be dominant source of lower accumulation and ultrafine particles near ports. Utilizing the "opportunistic" data from the air pollution studies during the October 2003 fires, the actual impact of the wildfires is studied on air quality in urban Los Angeles. The wildfires caused the greatest increases in PM10 levels while ozone concentrations dropped during the fire episode and these fire-borne particles were shown to effectively penetrate indoors. To characterize the emission profiles from on-road diesel and gasoline vehicle-fleets, size-segregated PM samples were collected inside the Caldecott tunnel in Orinda, CA and analyzed for vehicular organic tracers such as hopanes and steranes, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In a separate study, detailed information on the chemical characteristics of organic PM originating from a pure gasoline and a diesel dominated mixed-traffic freeway is obtained. While hopanes and steranes, and high molecular weight PAHs levels are found comparable near these freeways, elemental carbon and lighter molecular weight PAHs are found much elevated near diesel dominated mixed-fleet freeway. Remarkably good agreement is observed between the roadside measurements and the emission factors calculated from the tunnel measurements especially for hopanes and steranes. Our results indicate that the fleet composition as well as atmospheric dilution has strong impact on the ambient concentrations of these organic tracers.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielilan Hall, Room 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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BME Seminar Series
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Digital Microfluids"CJ Kim, PhD
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, Los AngelesLocation: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Adam Wyatt
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Epstein ISE Seminar - JOSEPH HARTMAN, Chair, ISE Department, Lehigh University
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Analyzing R&D Investment Decisions with Approximate Dynamic ProgrammingABSTRACT: Research and development (R&D) projects are often defined by multi-stage
investments. For example, growth in the pharmaceutical industry is
driven by the research and development of drugs that pass through a
number of stages, from discovery to clinical testing to governmental
approval. A company must periodically consider which drugs to pursue
and fund in the R&D process. These decisions can be difficult because
resources are limited and test results are often unclear. We model the
R&D investment process with stochastic dynamic programming. As the
state space to represent a portfolio of projects is of high dimension,
the recursion can only be solved over a number of periods. Thus, we
employ approximation techniques to extend the horizon of analysis and
ensure good time zero decisions. We illustrate our approximation
scheme, computational results, and insights gained in the
decision-making process. Furthermore, we provide a procedure to
validate our solutions.This is joint work with Pinar Keles, Ph.D. candidate in Industrial and
Sytems Engineering, Lehigh University.BIOSKETCH: JOSEPH C. HARTMAN (http://www.lehigh.edu/~jch6) is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Industrial and Systems Engineering at Lehigh University, holds the
George Kledaras Endowed Chair, and serves as Department Chair. He
received his Ph.D. (1996) and M.S. (1994) in Industrial Engineering from
the Georgia Institute of Technology and B.S. in General Engineering from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1992). His research
interests are in economic decisions analysis and dynamic programming.
His undergraduate textbook, Engineering Economy and the Decision-Making
Process was released in the summer of 2006. He is an active member of
ASEE, IIE, and INFORMS and currently serves as Editor of The Engineering
Economist and the Senior Vice President of Publications on the IIE Board
of Trustees.Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Elaine Chew
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Facilities Engineering Is It a Necessary Technology
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 02:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Facilities Engineering
Is It a Necessary Technology?Kenneth E. Arnold,
AMEC ParagonA Tutorial Organized by the SPE Student Chapter at USCThis presentation discusses the history of facilities engineering and how facilities engineering has evolved into the important role it has today in field development economics. Areas of emerging processes technology are briefly discussed. The importance of emerging project management technologies is highlighted.Monday, March 5, 2007
Seminar at 2:00 P.M. in Hedco 116
Refreshments will be served after the seminar in the HED lobbyAll Graduate and Undergraduate Students are Invited
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce
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Defending Networked Resources Against Unwelcome Request Floods
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Michael WalfishMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyAbstract: The Internet is afflicted by unwelcome "requests", defined broadly as claims on a scarce resource, such as a server's CPU(in the case of spurious traffic whose purpose is to deny service) or a human's attention (in the case of spam). Traditional responses to these problems apply heuristics: they try to identify "bad" requests based on their content (e.g., in the way that spam filters analyze an email's text). This talk argues that heuristic attempts at filtering are inherently
gameable and instead presents two systems that limit request volumes directly. The first is a denial-of-service mitigation in which clients are encouraged to automatically send *more* traffic to a besieged server. The "good" clients can thereby compete equally with the "bad" ones. The second is a system for enforcing *per-sender email quotas* to control spam. This system scales to a workload of millions of requests per second, tolerates Byzantine faults in its constituent hosts, and resists a variety of external attacks. Biography: Michael Walfish is a Ph.D. student in computer science at M.I.T. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1998 and then worked for four years, three of those at Digital Fountain, Inc. His research interests are in networked systems, with sub-interests in security, performance, and network architecture.Host: Ramesh GovindanSnack served!
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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Statistical Failure Diagnosis in Software and Systems
Tue, Mar 06, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Alice ZhengCarnegie Mellon UniversityAbstract:As software and systems become increasingly complex, the task of debugging also becomes increasingly difficult. Manual diagnosis can require sifting through millions of lines of code and output logs. In addition, large systems contain many components, each complex on its own, and often interacting in unexpected ways.I present a case study illustrating how statistical machine learning algorithms, along with appropriate system instrumentation, can aid in failure
diagnosis. I propose a statistical software debugging framework that collects information from past successes and failures via fine-grained instrumentation of the program and then analyzes this information to locate suspicious
program predicates. I discuss the algorithmic challenges of the approach, and demonstrate a bi-clustering algorithm that is effective at simultaneously clustering failed runs and selecting useful predicates. Using this approach,
it took a programmer 20 minutes to find a long-standing bug in a real-world software program which he had never seen before.This work is done in collaboration with Ben Liblit (U. Wisconsin, Madison), Michael Jordan (U.C. Berkeley), Alex Aiken and Mayur Naik (Stanford).Biography:Alice Zheng received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2005 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Her interests lie in
applied machine learning, in particular to computer systems, software, and networks. Current projects include statistical software debugging,
performance diagnosis of distributed file systems, efficient internet traffic measurements, and modeling social networks.Hosted by Stefan SchaalRefreshments will be served.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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3D Ground Motion Simulation of the Grenoble Valley
Wed, Mar 07, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. Marco Stupazzini,
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,
Ludwig-Maximilians-University,
Munich, GermanyAbstract:ABSTRACT - The spectral element method (SEM) is a powerful numerical technique naturally suited for seismic wave propagation analyses. A class of SEM has been widely used in the seismological field thanks to its capability of providing high accuracy and allowing the implementation of optimized parallel algorithms. In this contribution, the capabilities of SEM based GeoELSE code are illustrated, to deal with the seismic response of a 3D model of the sedimentary basin of Grenoble (French Alps). The model is excited by seismic waves originated by a strong motion scenario earthquake of MW = 6. Synthetic ground motions are calculated for all the recording sites prescribed in the framework of the ESG06 benchmark. The simulations take simultaneously into account the 3D topography of the area, the alluvial basin structure and the variation of mechanical properties throughout the valley.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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The Moral Morass of Contemporary Life
Wed, Mar 07, 2007 @ 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
The Visions and Voices Dialogues series continues with a panel discussion on the moral morass of contemporary life. Panelists include Rabbi Leonard Beerman and Rev. George Regas. The series is sponsored by the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and the USC Libraries.
Location: Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation (DOH) - eny Intellectual Commons, Room 233
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Daria Yudacufski
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Formulation of the k-omega Turbulence Model Revisited
Wed, Mar 07, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 AM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
David C. Wilcox President DCW Industries, Inc. La Cañada, CA With the rapidly developing field of Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) has come renewed interest in classical Reynolds-averaged (RANS) models of turbulence. DES solves the exact Navier-Stokes equation for the largest eddies and uses a conventional turbulence model to determine Reynolds stresses in thin shear layers. The quality of the DES, of course, depends critically upon how accurate the RANS model is. This seminar presents a new version of the author's k-omega model of turbulence, which is the most widely used turbulence model of its type for Computational Fluid Dynamics applications. The revisions include addition of just one new closure coefficient and a minor adjustment to the dependence of eddy viscosity on turbulence properties. The result is a model that applies to both boundary layers and free shear flows for all speed ranges from incompressible to hypersonic. The modifications to the new k-omega model have been made using the methodology developed by Wilcox in his popular textbook entitled "Turbulence Modeling for CFD." In this methodology, boundary layers and free shear flows are first dissected and analyzed using perturbation methods and similarity solutions. All aspects of the model, including boundary conditions for rough surfaces and surfaces with mass injection, are then developed and validated. Finally, a series of computations is performed for approximately 100 different applications including free shear flows, attached boundary layers, backward-facing steps and separated flows. The test cases include flows from incompressible speeds to Mach numbers in excess of 10. All computations have been done with state-of-the-art numerical flow solvers. The improvements to the k-omega model represent a significant expansion of its range of applicability. The new model, like preceding versions, provides accurate solutions for mildly-separated flows and simple geometries such as that of a backward-facing step. The model's improvement over earlier versions lies in its accuracy for even more complicated separated flows. This seminar demonstrates the enhanced capability for supersonic flow into compression corners and hypersonic shock/boundary-layer interactions. The excellent agreement is achieved without introducing any compressibility modifications to the turbulence model.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) Room 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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Large-Scale Quantum Architectures
Thu, Mar 08, 2007 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Large-Scale Quantum Architectures"Tzvetan MetodiUniversity of California, DavisAbstract:Quantum computing is an emerging field that offers revolutionary and exciting new means in the way we process, store, and transport information. Moreover, realizing large-scale quantum systems requires advances in science and engineering that are now very close to reality. Such systems will need the orchestration of many classical and quantum parts that fit together into one unified architecture in which each component plays an integral role over the course of the application execution. Therefore, it is important that we draw upon the experiences gained from traditional architectures, to develop a model for a large-scale quantum system that provides the methodology necessary for the many different components to work together.In this talk, I will first present the design of the Quantum Logic Array (QLA) architecture, which tackles critical scalability issues such as the cost of error correction and data distribution over large-distances. To accurately model the performance of the QLA architecture, we employ the ion-trap technology, where every component necessary for universal quantum computation has been demonstrated in the laboratory. However, due to its design approach for maximizing parallelism, the QLA system suffers from large area overhead. To combat the area problem, I describe a different architecture system that uses the concept of hardware specialization employed in traditional architectures. The new architecture is based on the QLA model, but is divided into separately optimized quantum memory hierarchy and logic specific regions. The result is a scalable system design that exploits the available parallelism to balance both quantum and classical resources while both reducing the area of the chip and increasing its performance. I end my talk with a discussion on the many open issues remaining when designing systems to perform quantum computation.Speaker Bio:Tzvetan Metodi received his Bachelors degree in physics from the University of California at Davis. He is currently a 5th year PhD student in Computer Science also at UC Davis and a visiting researcher at UC Santa Barbara for Professor Fred Chong. Tzvetan's current work focuses on the development of balanced architectural models of organization and specialization for emerging nanoelectronic computing devices. While a member of the Quantum Architecture Research Center (QARC), which is organized by faculty at UC Berkeley, University of Washington, MIT, and UC Davis, he spent parts of 2004 and 2006 as a visiting scholar at MIT under the guidance of Professor Isaac Chuang. Tzvetan is the principle author of a book titled "Quantum Computing for Computer Architects" published as part of the Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture by Morgan & Claypool Publishers in November, 2006.Hosted by: Prof. Viktor Prasanna, prasanna@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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INFLUENCE OF MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY ON THE FUEL EFFICIENCY OF AEROTURBINES
Thu, Mar 08, 2007 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Handy Colloquium INFLUENCE OF MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY ON THE FUEL EFFICIENCY OF AEROTURBINES Professor Anthony G. EvansDepartment of Materials & Mechanical Engineering
University of California
Santa Barbara, CAAbstractThe fuel efficiency of aero-turbines has been improved systematically during recent decades. The trend is strongly correlated with the increase in achievable temperature in the hot sections of the turbine. In turn, this temperature increase is attributed to combined advances in materials and active cooling technologies. This presentation examines the materials innovations that continue to be implemented due to advancements at the frontiers of materials and mechanics. The most recent advances have been enabled by multilayer coatings that impart thermal and oxidation protection. The former is provided by an oxide with exceptionally low thermal conductivity. The latter is achieved using alloy coatings that form alumina. For continued performance enhancement using such multilayer concepts a systems-level methodology is needed. The materials and mechanics formulations that have been devised for this purpose are described.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce
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FLOW VARIABILITY AND LABOR PRODUCTIVITY LOSS FOR CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Thu, Mar 08, 2007 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:
Min Liu,
Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Berkeley,Abstract
Lost labor productivity loss is one of the primary contributors to the cost and schedule overruns that affect many construction projects. Quantifying lost labor productivity on construction projects is difficult and sometimes subjective. A widely accepted way to quantify losses is the measured mile approach. In this research the measured mile and a variant, the baseline method, are analyzed and compared to a new, proposed statistical clustering method. The research explored applying a statistical clustering method in the measured mile and baseline calculation to inject objectivity in the analysis. The test on real data showed that the clustering method is more objective and therefore more convincing to both owners and contractors. The research also explored the relationship between flow variation and labor productivity. Identifying and quantifying the benefit of improving flow reliability can provide guidance for project managers to focus on the root causes of productivity loss in the planning stage. The research findings can also help consultants locate the causes and quantify responsibility of productivity loss in claims. Computer simulation and case study approaches were used to explore the correlation between flow variation and labor productivity.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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The Case for Data-Driven Multithreading: Scaling the Memory Wall
Fri, Mar 09, 2007 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
CENG SEMINAR SERIES"The Case for Data-Driven Multithreading: Scaling the Memory Wall"Dr. Paraskevas (Skevos) EvripidouDepartment of Computer ScienceUniversity of CyprusAbstract:Over the last five decades computer designers were able to design and build faster and faster computers by relying on improvements on fabrication technologies and architectural/organization optimizations. However, over the last five years the most severe limitations of the sequential model, namely its inability to tolerate long latencies has slowed down the performance gains, forcing the industry to hit the Memory wall. As a result the entire industry had to switch to multiple cores per chip and thus move into the concurrency era. New concurrent models/paradigms are needed in order to fully utilize the potential of Multi-core chips. The Dataflow model is a formal model that can handle concurrency and it can tolerate memory and synchronization latency. Consequently, we propose Data-Driven Multithreading (DDM), as it does not suffer from the above-mentioned limitations. This is because DDM is not based on the von Neumman model of execution but instead on the data-flow model of execution, which is side effect free. Thus, the memory latencies can be tolerated without the huge performance penalties of the von Neumann model. Furthermore, the data-driven scheduling does not require the complexity of the multiple issue and out-of-order mechanisms. Data-Driven Multithreading is a non-blocking multithreading model based on the Decoupled Data-Driven model of execution. This model decouples the synchronization from the computation portions of a program allowing them to execute asynchronously. In this model a thread is scheduled for execution in a dataflow manner, i.e., whenever all of its required data have been produced. As a consequence, no synchronization or communication latencies are experienced. We have demonstrated that DDM can be implemented with regular off-the-shelf microprocessors. Therefore it has the obvious benefit that a system may combine both DDM and the latest microprocessor technology. The core of the DDM implementation is the Thread Synchronization Unit (TSU). TSU is a memory-mapped device attached directly to the processor's bus and provides data-driven thread scheduling to the conventional microprocessor. Data-Driven perfecting improves drastically the hit ratio of the cache and at the same time requires much smaller cache memories. Thus, limiting the power consumption, and reducing further the effect of long memory latencies. Simulation experiments have shown that DDM achieves very respectable speedups.Bio:Skevos Evripidou is a Professor at the department of Computer Science at the University of Cyprus. From 1990 to 1994 he was on the Faculty of the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Southern Methodist University. He received his Phd in Computer engineering from the University of Southern California in 1990. His current research interests are in Parallel Processing, Computer Architecture, Pervasive and Mobile computing. Dr Evripidou has participated in several projects funded by the European Union, the USA (NSF, DARPA, and DOE) and the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation. He is a member of the IFIP Working Group 10.3, the IEEE Computer Society and ACM SIGARCH. He is also a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Tau Beta Pi honor societies. Host: Prof. Viktor Prasanna, prasanna@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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DURABILITY OF LOW-EMISSIONS SMALL OFF-ROAD ENGINES
Fri, Mar 09, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Hung-Li Chang, Ph.D.
California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources BoardThe purpose of this study was to determine whether catalyst technology could be applied to small off-road engines to provide 50% or greater reductions in hydrocarbons plus oxides of nitrogen (HC+NOx) emissions throughout the engines' useful lives. Low-emission engines were developed using three-way catalytic converters, passive secondary-air induction systems. Catalysts were integrated into the engine's mufflers, where feasible, to maintain a compact package. To enable HC oxidation under such rich conditions, a simple passive supplemental air induction system was developed. The main conclusions of this work are that catalyst technology can be successfully applied to small off-road engines; that such applications are durable; and that HC+NOx reductions of 50 – 70% were demonstrated over the useful lives of several small engines. The results of this program are significant because they show good catalyst performance can be achieved on small engines using the stock rich air/fuel calibration through the use of a novel supplementary air induction system.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Honors Colloquium: Laser-Based Imaging of Combustion Processes in the Next Generation of Engines
Fri, Mar 09, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture offered by Mr. Mark Musculus of Sandia National Laboratories.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students
Contact: Erika Chua
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BME Seminar Series
Mon, Mar 19, 2007 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Heart Regeneration: Lessons form Zebrafish"Ellen Lien, PhD
Assistant Professor of Research
Children's Hospital Los AngelesLocation: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Adam Wyatt
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Contextuality From a Quantum Information-Theoretic Perspective
Tue, Mar 20, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Robert Spekkens, University of CambridgeAbstract: Quantum theory is contextual in the sense that it does not admit a noncontextual hidden variable model, as demonstrated by the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. It is interesting to speculate that contextuality might be responsible for certain quantum improvements in information processing tasks, such as, for instance, random access codes and computational speed-ups. As a precursor to such an investigation, it is useful to reconsider the definition of contextuality from a modern quantum information theoretic perspective. I argue that such a perspective leads one naturally to a generalization of the standard notion of contextuality. Using this new definition, one can prove that quantum theory is contextual for preparations, transformations, and unsharp measurements. The possible significance of these results to quantum information theory will be discussed.Bio: Robert Spekkens did his undergraduate degree in Physics at McGill University, and his graduate work was done at the University of Toronto. He was a postdoc at Perimeter Institute for 3 years. Since Jan. 2006, He has been taking up a Royal Society fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Half of his time is spent on quantum information theory and the other half on quantum foundations.Host: Todd Brun, tbrun@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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CS Colloquium Series - Michael Goodrich
Tue, Mar 20, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Blood on the Computer: How Algorithms for Testing Blood Samples can be used for DNA Sequencing, Wireless Broadcasting, and Network SecurityDr. Michael GoodrichUniversity of California-IrvineAbstract:
This talk discusses combinatorial group testing, which began from work on detecting diseases in blood samples taken from GIs in WWII. Given a parameter d, which provides an upper bound on the number of defective (e.g., diseased) samples, the main objective of such problems is to design algorithms that identify all the defective samples without explicitly testing all n samples. This classic problem has a number of interesting modern applications, and we provide several new efficient algorithms that can be applied in these new contexts. In particular, modern applications we will discuss include problems in DNA sequencing, wireless broadcasting, and network security.Biography:
Prof. Goodrich received his B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Calvin College in 1983 and his PhD in Computer Sciences from Purdue University in 1987. He served as a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University from 1987-2001, and a professor of computer science since 2001 at UC-Irvine, where he also serves as director of the Center of Cyber-Security and Privacy, as well as Equity Advisor and Associate Dean for Academic Personnel in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. He has also served on the faculties of Univ. of Illinois and Brown University during sabbatical visits.
Dr. Goodrich's research is directed at the design of high performance algorithms and data structures for solving large-scale problems motivated from information assurance and security, the Internet, information visualization, and geometric computing. He has pioneered and led research on efficient parallel and distributed solutions to a number of fundamental problems, including sorting, convex hull construction, segment intersection reporting, fixed-dimensional linear programming, polygon triangulation, Voronoi diagram construction, and data authentication.
With nearly 200 publications, including several widely adopted books, his recent work includes contributions to efficient and secure distributed data structures, authenticated geometric searching, IP traceback, and network/grid security. He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, a Compere Loveless Fellow, and a member of the Fulbright Senior Specialist Roster, the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society, and the editorial boards of several top journals on algorithms. He is a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, the NSF Research Initiation Award, the DARPA Spirit of Technology Transfer Award, the Brown Univ. Award for Technological Innovation, the ACM Recognition of Service Award, and the Pond Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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Use of a Mobile Instrument Platform to Measure On-Road Concentrations...
Wed, Mar 21, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Use of a Mobile Instrument Platform to Measure On-Road Concentrations of Ultrafine Particles and Other Air Pollutants in Los Angeles Speaker:
Scott Fruin,
Environmental Health Division
Keck School of Medicine ,USCAbstract:Motor vehicles are the dominant source of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), particulate matter (PM), and many air toxics (e.g., benzene, 1,3-butadiene) in most urban areas. On roadways, motor vehicle-related pollutant concentrations are typically many times higher than ambient concentrations. Due to high air exchange rates typical of moving vehicles, this makes time spent in vehicles on roadways a major source of exposure. This talk presents on-road measurements for Los Angeles freeways and arterial roads taken from a zero-emission electric vehicle outfitted with real-time instruments. The objective was to characterize air pollutant concentrations on roadways and identify the factors associated with the highest concentrations. Our analysis demonstrated that on freeways, concentrations of ultrafine particles (UFP), black carbon, nitric oxide, and PM-bound PAH are generated primarily by diesel-powered vehicles, despite the relatively low average fraction (~6%) of diesel-powered vehicles on Los Angeles freeways. However, UFP concentrations on arterial roads appeared to be driven primarily by proximity to gasoline-powered vehicles undergoing hard accelerations from stops, and were roughly one-third the concentrations of freeways. By using a multiple regression model for the freeway measurements, we were able to explain 60 to 70% of the variability in concentrations of UFP, black carbon, nitric oxide, and PM-bound PAH using measures of diesel truck density and time of day. Freeway concentrations of these pollutants were also well correlated with readily-available annual average daily truck counts from CalTrans, potentially allowing improved population exposure estimates for epidemiology studies. Based on these roadway measurements and average driving time, it appears that about 40 to 50% of total UFP exposure for Los Angeles residents occurs due to time in vehicles.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Anatomy of Complex Reaction Systems. Combustion Reaction Mechanisms from Ignition Delay Times
Wed, Mar 21, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Assa Lifshitz Emeritus Faculty Member Department of Physical Chemistry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel One of the very useful approaches to the understanding of the kinetics and mechanism of complex combustion systems is the measurement and modeling of the induction period that precedes the ignition of a fuel in a shock tube. When a mixture of a fuel and oxidant is subjected to shock heating, it ignites, following an induction period known as the ignition delay time. This delay is the outcome of the exponential character of the overall reaction rate resulting from various chain branching reactions and adiabatic temperature rise during the course of the reaction. The delay time which is a readily measurable quantity is a function of the initial temperature, pressure and composition of the reaction mixture. The measurement of its dependence on the reactant concentrations and temperature provides a very powerful basis for modeling and understanding the oxidation mechanism. The high potential of this methods was recognized by many combustion kineticists and a very large volume of experimental results and kinetics modeling have been published. The following picture is a typical pressure record showing the reflected shock heating and the ignition process. It is useful to summarize the dependence of the ignition delay times on the composition of the system and on the temperature in a simple parametric relation that can later serve as a basis for computer modeling. It has been shown in the past in numerous ignition studies behind shock waves that the general relation between the induction times and the concentrations is very similar to the relation between a rate of a chemical reaction and the concentrations, that is, tignition = A Ði Ci âi where tignition is the ignition delay time, Ci is a concentration of a component i, and âi is a parameter somewhat similar to an empirical reaction order. It has also been shown that the concentration independent parameter can be presented as, A = 10á exp [E/RT] an expression very similar to a rate constant (except that A decreases with temperature). The parameters E and âi are determined by a complex kinetic scheme. They are experimentally determined quantities and provide a very useful means to summarize the experimental results in a quantitative manner. After establishing an empirical relation as above and determining the parameters, one can perform computer experiments under conditions similar to the laboratory experiments and try, for a given reaction scheme to reproduce these parameters. One then arbitrarily varies the magnitude of the various rate constants in the kinetic scheme and examines the influence of such variations on the magnitude of the ignition delay time and its dependence on the concentrations and on the temperature. From the results of this type of experiments, the role of each reaction in the overall mechanism can be elucidated. By employing such methods, many interesting combustion schemes were analyzed in the past and details of the kinetics and an understanding of the oxidation mechanisms were achieved. We will present and discuss several such systems.
Location: Seaver Science Library, (SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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The Conservatory as Exploratory
Wed, Mar 21, 2007 @ 07:30 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Visions and Voices brings you a concert event featuring several world-class, conservatory-trained musicians from around the world including Sicily's Francesco Buzurro, Argentina's Daniel Corzo and USC's Richard Smith. They will participate in real-time musical risk-taking through their collaborative performance. Parallels will be drawn and discussed from business, leadership and mathematics to teambuilding, globalization, the importance of creativity and USC's core values.An after-concert panel of USC music-school graduates will discuss their post-USC success strategies in the context of the turbulence of the information revolution. Panel members have worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in major television and film productions and with recording artists including Snoop Dogg, Johnny Lang, Josh Groban, Mark Anthony and the Backstreet Boys.for more information, please visit: http://www.usc.edu/webapps/events_calendar/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.861449&active_category=Day
Location: Alfred Newman Recital Hall
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Daria Yudacufski
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CS Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Mar 22, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Prof. Martha Pollack
University of MichiganTitle: Intelligent Assistive Technology: The Present and the FutureAbstract: Recent advances in two areas of computer sciencewireless sensor networks and AI inference strategies have made it possible to envision a wide range of technologies that can improve the lives of people with people with physical, cognitive, and/or psycho-social impairments. Indeed, some of these same "assistive technologies" can also be a boon for people without impairments. This talk will survey current projects aimed at the development of intelligent assistive technology and will speculate about future design challenges and opportunities.Biography: Martha E. Pollack is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, where she also chairs the Computer Science and Engineering Division. A Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Pollack has conducted research in the areas of automated planning and execution monitoring, temporal reasoning and constraint satisfaction, and natural language processing, as well as on assistive technology for cognitively impaired people. In April of 2004 she testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging about the potential value of assistive technology in an aging world.Hosted by: Prof. Maja MataricLocation: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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Andrew J. Viterbi Distinguished Lecture
Thu, Mar 22, 2007 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
The 2007 Viterbi Lecture is hosted by the USC Ming Hsieh Department of
Electrical Engineering and Viterbi School of Engineering"Learning to Teach the Viterbi Algorithm"Prof. Robert J. McElieceCalifornia Institute of TechnologyThursday March 22, 2007Reception: 4:00-5:00PMLecture: 5:00-6:15PMGerontology AuditoriumAbstract: One of Andrew Viterbi's most important contributions to modern technology is the celebrated Viterbi Algorithm, which is the cornerstone of modern coding theory. I have taught the Viterbi Algorithm to many generations of Caltech students using a variety of pedagogical devices, including string models, multilevel transparencies, and computer animations. In this talk I will discuss these methods as well as others, and what I have learned by teaching the Viterbi Algorithm.Bio:Robert J. McEliece is currently the Allen E. Puckett Professor and Professor of Electrical Engineering, at the California Institute of Technology. He has also been a regular consultant at the Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At JPL Dr. McEliece has contributed to the design and analysis of numerous coded interplanetary telecommunication systems, for example the Golay coded non-imaging system for the Voyager spacecraft, and the Big Viterbi Decoder, which has been used by the Galileo, Pathfinder, Cassini, and Mars Rover missions. As a faculty member at Caltech, he has five times won awards for excellence in teaching, and mentored more than 30 Ph.D. students. From 1990-1999, he served as Executive Officer for Electrical Engineering, and under his leadership Caltech's small (15 FTE) EE Department rose to rank 5th nationally. Dr. McEliece is the author of three textbooks and more than 250 research articles, jointly with more than 100 coauthors. Among his research accomplishments are "McEliece's Theorem," on weight divisibility in cyclic codes, the "JPL Bound" (jointly with Eugene Rodemich, Howard Rumsey, and Lloyd Welch), which has been the world record-holder in the basic combinatorial problem of coding since 1977, and which was selected for a Information Theory Society Golden Jubilee Award in 1998, the ``McEliece public-key cryptosystem,'' which has withstood the attacks of cryptanalysts for more than 25 years, and "repeat-accumulate codes" (jointly with Dariush Divsalar and Hui Jin), which bridge the gap between turbo-codes and LDPC codes. He won the 1998 Leonard G. Abraham Prize for his paper (joint with David MacKay and Jung-fu Cheng) "Turbo decoding as an instance of Pearl's belief propagation algorithm," and was awarded an IEEE Third Millenium Medal in 2000. In 2004 he was awarded the IEEE Information Theory Society's Shannon Prize. Dr. McEliece is a member of the American Mathematical Society, a Fellow of the IEEE, a past president of the IEEE Information Theory Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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Honors Program Colloquium: Can One Make a Mouse Model of Mental Illness, and Why Try
Fri, Mar 23, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture offered by Professor Paul H. Patterson, the A. and B. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students
Contact: Erika Chua
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Global Warming Regulations in California
Fri, Mar 23, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Joseph Hower, P.E., DEE,
Managing Principal,
Environ International Southern California Operatiion,
Los AngelesAbstractCalifornia is once again on the leading edge of environmental regulatory developments with its adoption of Assembly Bill (AB) 32, which requires that California reduce its emissions of greenhouse gasses to 1990 levels by 2020. This represents a reduction in emissions of approximately 175 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions from current levels. The basics of greenhouse gases, control strategies, and the regulatory process will be discussed.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Effect of Global Warming Regulations in California
Fri, Mar 23, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Joseph Hower, P.E., DEE,
Managing Principal,
Environ International Southern California Operatiion,
Los AngelesAbstractCalifornia is once again on the leading edge of environmental regulatory developments with its adoption of Assembly Bill (AB) 32, which requires that California reduce its emissions of greenhouse gasses to 1990 levels by 2020. This represents a reduction in emissions of approximately 175 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions from current levels. The basics of greenhouse gases, control strategies, and the regulatory process will be discussed.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Achieving Secure Communication Over Wireless Channels
Mon, Mar 26, 2007 @ 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yingbin Grace Liang,
Princeton UniversityAbstract: In this talk, I will begin with an overview of research in information theory for wireless communications, including a summary of my contributions to this area. The main focus of the talk will be on my recent work on information-theoretic security for wireless communication networks.Two basic wireless communication scenarios are broadcast communication from one transmitter to multiple receivers and multiple access communication from multiple transmitters to one receiver. While security issues were addressed for broadcast communication by Wyner, Csiszar and Korner in 70's, security issues in multiple access communication have been open for three decades. In this talk, I will present our work towards resolving these open problems.I will first introduce the channel that we have identified to model wireless multiple access communication, where security issues arise naturally. For this channel, we have developed novel techniques to characterize reliable communication rates under secrecy constraints (possibly perfect secrecy). I will also postulate the general coding design principles that are essential to achieve secure communication.Biography: Yingbin Liang received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. Since September 2005, she has been working as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. Her research interests include wireless communications and networks, information security, and information theory.Dr. Liang was a Vodafone Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during 2003-2005, and received the Vodafone-U.S. Foundation Fellows Initiative Research Merit Award in 2005. She also received the M. E. Van Valkenburg Graduate Research Award from the ECE department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 2005.Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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BME Seminar Series
Mon, Mar 26, 2007 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Tracking Fate of Transplanted Stem Cells in the Heart"Joseph Wu, MD, PhD
Clinical Instructor
Stanford University School of Medicine
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Adam Wyatt
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An Overview of Research Activities of the Systems and Applied Mechanics.....
Mon, Mar 26, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
An Overview of Research Activities of the Systems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie:
Call for International CollaborationByDr. Slim Choura, s_choura@yahoo.comSystems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory
Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie
La Marsa, 2078, TUNISIAABSTRACTAn overview of the research activities conducted by the members of the Systems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory (SAML) at Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, Tunisia, is first presented. Specific activities within the area of Civil Engineering are more emphasized. Second, a summary of the application of a rational methodology for the structural assessment of reinforced concrete bridges and historical buildings will be given. This methodology is based on ambient vibration measurement, identification modal signature and linear and nonlinear finite element model updating of these structures. Finally, SAML future research activities, which call for international collaboration, are presented.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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An Overview of Research Activities of the Systems and Applied Mechanics.....
Mon, Mar 26, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
An Overview of Research Activities of the Systems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie:
Call for International CollaborationByDr. Slim Choura,
s_choura@yahoo.comSystems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory
Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie
La Marsa, 2078, TUNISIAABSTRACTAn overview of the research activities conducted by the members of the Systems and Applied Mechanics Laboratory (SAML) at Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, Tunisia, is first presented. Specific activities within the area of Civil Engineering are more emphasized. Second, a summary of the application of a rational methodology for the structural assessment of reinforced concrete bridges and historical buildings will be given. This methodology is based on ambient vibration measurement, identification modal signature and linear and nonlinear finite element model updating of these structures. Finally, SAML future research activities, which call for international collaboration, are presented.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Efficient and Private Distance Approximation
Mon, Mar 26, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
David WoodruffMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyAbstract:I will cover two of my results in distance approximation. Consider the setting in which two parties want to approximate the distance between their input vectors.First I will consider l_2, the Euclidean distance. It is known how to approximate l_2 efficiently. However, if we require the protocol to be private, that is, neither party can learn more than what follows from the distance and his/her private input, much less is known. Feigenbaum, Ishai, Malkin, Nissim, Strauss, and Wright [FIMNSW] gave a protocol with O(sqrt{d}) communication for privately approximating the Hamming distance of two d-dimensional vectors. I will give a private protocol with polylog(d) communication for l_2. As a special case, this yields an exponential improvement over [FIMNSW] for the Hamming distance.Next I will consider the l_p distance, for p > 2. This problem is motivated by recent research in streaming algorithms, and has applications in database theory. I will give a 1-round protocol achieving optimal communication for this problem, up to logarithmic factors. It is easy to implement in the streaming model, and consequently resolves the main open question of a 1996 paper of Alon, Matias, and Szegedy.Joint work with Piotr Indyk (STOC 2005, TCC 2006).Biography: David Woodruff is a fifth-year PhD student at MIT. He received his master's in computer science, and B.S. degrees in both computer science and mathematics, all from MIT. He is interested in theoretical computer science, particularly algorithms, complexity theory, and cryptography.Hosted by David KempeRefreshments will be served.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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BMES ERC Faculty/Student Meeting
Tue, Mar 27, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Presentations from Drs. Ellis Meng and Roberta Diaz Brinton
Location: Health Sciences Campus, Doheny Vision Research Center Building (DOH)
Audiences: Graduate/Undergrad
Contact: Doris Lee
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WiBro - A 2.3GHz Mobile WiMAX System: Standards, System Development and Deployment
Tue, Mar 27, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Byeong Gi Lee, Seoul National UniversityABSTRACT: WiBro is a 2.3 GHz based Mobile WiMAX system that realizes the IEEE 802.16e standards. WiBro system was developed very recently and is currently being deployed for commercial services for the first time. The Mobile WiMAX/WiBro system distinguishes itself by the three distinctive features, namely, broadband, IP and mobility. It provides high-speed data services over 19/5Mbps downlink/upling in its initial stage, which is likely to be doubled in the second stage. It fully employs the IP technology, differently from the existing cellular systems such as WCDMA/HSDPA and cdma2000/EV-DO. In addition, it can provide high-rate data services to the mobile users moving over 120 km/h. In multiple access, it distinguished itself from the existing cellular mobile systems in that it employs the OFDMA technology, not the CDMA or TDMA technology. In this aspect, the Mobile WiMAX/WiBro system is viewed as an early version of the 4th generation wireless systems. The technical presentation will introduce Mobile WiMAX/WiBro in the scope of system overview, standards, system development and deployment. It will include illustrations of the systems that have been developed by Samsung Electronics and the trial/commercial services that were recently begun by KT.Bio: Byeong Gi Lee received the BS degree from Seoul National University and the Ph.D. degree from UCLA, and then worked for Granger Associates, Santa Clara, and AT&T Bell Laboratories, North Andover, before joining the faculty of Seoul National University in 1986, where he served as the Director of the Institute of New Media and Communications and the Vice Chancellor for Research. Dr. Lee was the founding chair of the Joint Conference of Communications and Information (JCCI), the steering committee chair of the Asia Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC), and the founding committee chair of the Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea (ABEEK). He served as the TPC Chair of IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2005 and as the President of Korea Society of Engineering Education (KSEE). He served as the Editor (in chief) of the IEEE Global Communications Newsletter, an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on CSVT, and the founding Associate Editor-in-Chief and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communications and Networks (JCN). He served for the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) as the Director of Membership Programs Development, as the Director of Asia Pacific Region, as the Director of Magazines and as a Member-at-Large to the Board of Governors. He currently serves as the Vice President for Membership Development of IEEE ComSoc, as the President of Korea Institute of Communication Sciences (KICS) and as a Vice President of the ABEEK. He is the founder and the first President of the Citizens' Coalition for Scientific Society (CCSS), a non-government organization for the advancement of science and technology in Korea, a member of Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology, and a member of Presidential Advisory Committee for Policy Planning. Dr. Lee is a co-author of Broadband Telecommunication Technology, 1st & 2nd editions, (Artech House), Scrambling Techniques for Digital Transmission (Springer Verlag), Scrambling Techniques for CDMA Communications (Kluwer), and Integrated Broadband Networks (Artech House). He holds seven U.S. patents with four more patents pending. His current fields of interest include broadband networks, wireless networks, communication systems, and signal processing. He received the 1984 Myril B. Reed Best Paper Award, Exceptional Contribution Awards of AT&T Bell Laboratories, a Distinguished Achievement Award of KICS, the 2001 National Academy of Science (of Korea) Award, and the 2005 Kyung-am Academic Award. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, a Member of Sigma Xi, and a Fellow of the IEEE.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Studies on Aerosol Impacts on Climate and Health
Wed, Mar 28, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. Suzanne Paulson,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
UCLAAbstract:1. Optical Properties, Measurement Uncertainties, and Health Impacts of Aerosol Particles
Black carbon and organic carbon aerosols have substantial effects on the Earth's climate, yet because of large uncertainties in both the optical properties, mass measurements and emissions of these materials, their impacts cannot be quantified with any accuracy. We are studying a series of model aerosols generated under realistic conditions using small engines and photochemical smog in a roof-top Teflon reaction chamber. Aerosols are characterized with an extensive suite of techniques including in situ optical and off-line optical to off-line mass and composition analyzers. Among these instruments is a new instrument to measure aerosol angular scattering. From this measurement we are developing a method to retrieve aerosol refractive indices from the data using a genetic algorithms approach.2. Aerosol Production of Hydrogen Peroxide
Recent epidemiological studies have shown a strong relationship between particulate pollution and health outcomes, including mortality. Determining the 'causative agent' in particles responsible for damaging health is the subject of increasing study, but many questions remain. Reactive oxygen species, including hydrogen peroxide, are candidates for part of the adverse health effects caused by particle inhalation. In this project, aerosol borne oxidants are being characterized, investigating the relationship between these toxic compounds and location, source type, aerosol type, and photochemical activity. Additionally, laboratory studies on model systems are underway to determine the source and behavior of peroxides in aerosols.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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High-Angle Grain Boundaries and the Evolution of Texture during Severe Plastic Deformation (SPD) Pro
Wed, Mar 28, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Terry R McNelleyCenter for Materials Science and EngineeringDepartment of Mechanical and Astronautical EngineeringNaval Postgraduate SchoolMonterey, CaliforniaAbstractThe production of highly refined microstructures in engineering alloys by application of novel SPD technologies may lead to dramatic property improvements, but realization of this potential will require improved understanding of microstructure control and microstructure – processing – property relationships. This presentation will examine high-angle boundary formation in microstructures after conventional and SPD processing of aluminum and its alloys, and the relationship between these boundaries and components of the texture. Recent orientation imaging microscopy investigations in this laboratory have revealed distinct, meso-scale band - or block-like features in processed materials. The lattice orientations within these features alternate between prominent texture orientations in a manner reminiscent of deformation banding in fcc metals. Analytical transmission electron microscopy has shown that the interfaces between these features are dislocation boundaries that may be precursors to disordered high-angle grain boundaries. Recent results on materials processed by large-strain extrusion machining will be included.About the PresenterTerry McNelley is a native of Fort Wayne, Indiana. He received his BS in Metallurgical Engineering in 1967 from Purdue and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering in 1973 from Stanford. For the period 1972-76 he was a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wyoming, and from 1976 – present he has been in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, serving as Department Chair from 1996 – 2002. He has held visiting appointments at institutions in England (1980-81), Japan (1993) and Spain (1999). Professor McNelley's interests include microstructure – processing – property relationships in metallic materials; deformation processing, microstructures, recrystallization and superplasticity; and metal matrix composites. He was elected Fellow of ASMI in 2001.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) Room 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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Wireless propagation channels and their impact of system design
Thu, Mar 29, 2007 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andreas Molisch,
Lund UniversityAbstract: This talk has the central premise that a good understanding of the wireless propagation channel is vital for system design and simulation. This premise is emphasized by means of several examples from the areas of multi-antenna systems, co-operative communications, and ultrawideband (UWB) systems. In the multi-antenna case, we first present a number of channel measurement and modeling techniques. We then discuss the impact of the channels on the efficiency of antenna subset selection, a technique that reduces the complexity of MIMO systems by using only a small number of RF up/downconversion chains and connecting them adaptively to the "best" antenna elements. Next, we turn our attention to co-operative communications, and show how the correlation between fading at different nodes influences the optimum cooperation strategies. Finally, we explore UWB communications. After an overview of the special properties of UWB channels and their impact on Rake receivers, we explore in detail a new modulation format that is especially useful in heterogeneous networks. The modulation format can be received by transmitted-reference as well as coherent receivers, and gives almost-optimum performance for each of those receiver types. We will discuss both mathematically and intuitively the performance of this scheme in different propagation channels.Biography: Andreas F. Molisch is Professor and Chairholder for Radio Systems at Lund University, Sweden, and Deputy Director of the SSF National Center of Excellence for High-Speed Wireless Communications. He is simultaneously Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs in Cambridge, MA, USA. Previously, he worked at the Technical University of Vienna, the Research Center for Telecommunications Vienna, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. His current research interests are measurement and modeling of wireless propagation channels, ultrawideband communications, MIMO systems, and cooperative communications. He has authored, co-authored, or edited four books (among them the recent textbook "Wireless Communications"), 11 book chapters, some 100 journal papers, and numerous conference contributions. He has been chairman of a number of international standardization groups, international conferences and symposia, and editor for IEEE journals. Dr. Molisch is a Fellow of the IEEE and recipient of several awards.Host: Robert Scholtz, scholtz@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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NSF Funding Opportunities and Writing Successful NSF Proposals
Thu, Mar 29, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
NSF supports basic research and education projects to advance the discovery and application of scientific and engineering knowledge. This talk will give a brief overview of NSF organizational structure, highlight some of the relevant funding areas, present the proposal review process and provide general tips on how to write successful NSF proposals. Particular attention will be paid to funding opportunities in the Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Engineering (ENG) directorates.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Jr Faculty
Contact: Jennifer Alvarado
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Bridging VLSI Design and Manufacturing
Thu, Mar 29, 2007 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Bridging VLSI Design and Manufacturing"Puneet GuptaUniversity of California, San DiegoAbstract:The semiconductor industry is at an interesting-and scary-juncture. Design and manufacturing NRE (nonrecurring engineering) costs for a state-of-the-art chip can reach several tens of millions of dollars; this makes the transition to newer processes economically infeasible for low- to medium-volume IC products. Scaling of physical dimensions faster than the optical wavelengths or equipment tolerances used in the manufacturing line has led to increased process variability. This in turn has led to unpredictable design, unpredictable manufacturing, and low yields. As a result of the above trends, future power, performance and cost improvements cannot come from the manufacturing process alone; they depend significantly on design automation technology. Such "equivalent scaling" improvements - perhaps as much as one full technology generation - must come from new synergies between various "silos" of the design to manufacturing flow. Today, design for manufacturing ("DFM") is the new buzzword in design automation, manufacturing automation, semiconductor and semiconductor equipment industries alike. My work in this still-nascent research area has developed new bidirectional data flows and techniques that bridge design and manufacturing, and that address the challenges of (1) high cost of design, (2) high cost of manufacturing, (3) low manufacturing yield, and (4) disconnects between design and the manufacturing process. In this talk, I will first briefly sketch the design and manufacturing flows, then show how the challenges of low predictability and high variability in modern integrated circuits can be addressed by new design techniques that are explicitly aware of manufacturing limitations. I will give examples of how leakage power variability and timing variability can be mitigated by such manufacturing-aware design methods. I will also give examples of new design-aware manufacturing flows that better capture the designer's intent in silicon. The talk will conclude with several directions for future research.Bio:Puneet Gupta received the B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2000. He joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at University of California, San Diego in 2001 where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate. He has been at Blaze DFM Inc. since 2004 as co-founder and product architect. Puneet's research has focused on building high-value bridges between physical design and semiconductor manufacturing for lowered cost, increased yield and improved predictability of integrated circuits. He has authored over 40 papers and is a recipient of IBM Ph.D. fellowship. He holds one US patent and has 12 pending. He has given tutorial talks at ICCAD, WesCon, CMP-MIC, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego and is a short-course instructor at SPIE Advanced Lithography, 2007.Hosted by: Prof. Sandeep Gupta, sandeep@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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CS Colloquium Lecture: Rachid Alami
Thu, Mar 29, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Title: A Robot That Aims to Serve Humans and Be Accepted By ThemProf. Rachid AlamiSenior Scientist at LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France. Abstract:We are conducting research toward the construction of a cognitive robots able to act in close interaction with humans and to serve as a companion in their daily life.
I will present several results developed in COGNIRON, a collaborative research project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the 'Beyond Robotics' workprogramme.
Cogniron research teams contribute to the study of the perceptual, representational, reasoning and learning capabilities of embodied robots in a human centred perspective.
More particularly, I will focus on issues that involve decisional interaction between a human and a robot that acts and moves in his close vicinity.Bio sketch:Prof. Rachid ALAMI is Senior Scientist at LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France. He received an engineer diploma in Computer Science in 1978 from ENSEEIHT, and a Ph.D in Robotics in 1983 from the University Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France). He contributed and took important responsibilities in several national, European and international research and/or collaborative projects (EUREKA, ESPRIT, IST). His main research contributions fall in the fields of robot architectures, task and motion planning, manipulation, multi-robot cooperation and more generally robot decisional autonomy. He has also a substantial experience in robotics system integration and transfer operations.Host: Dr. Adriana Tapus
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Nancy Levien
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Life in an Industrial Central Research Laboratory: An Insiders View
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Douglas Baney, Agilent LaboratoriesAbstract: The industrial central research laboratory has undergone major transformations in the past couple of years. Labs that have successfully managed technology creation and its transition to commercialization continue to flourish. Doug will talk about his experiences in Agilent Labs, the central research arm of Agilent Technologies, and characteristics of a successful industrial research laboratory. He will provide examples of some of the projects that the Labs have investigated, and comment on attributes of projects and of researchers who have excelled in this environment. Questions are definitely welcome.Biography: Doug Baney has 25 years of industrial experience in both central research laboratories and in R&D centers directly tied to product development. He has worked as an R&D microwave engineer in Hewlett-Packard's signal analysis business unit where he designed millimeter wave down converters for spectrum analyzers. In the late 1980s, he helped launch Hewlett-Packard's lightwave instruments business in his role as a photonics instrument R&D engineer within a product business unit. In 1991 he joined Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, the central research laboratory for Hewlett-Packard, where he conducted research in various optical and opto-electronic technologies including laser displays, low-coherence optical reflectometry, optical amplifier characterization, ZBLAN rare-earth doped fiber upconversion lasers and optical components. Since then he has been promoted to Project Manager, and now Manager of the Measurements & Sensors Department of Agilent Laboratories, the central research laboratory of Agilent Technologies, Inc. Doug holds the BSEE, MSEE and Ph.D. degrees from Cal Poly, UCSB, and the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, Paris, France respectively. He has chaired major international conferences such as OFC and OAA, he has published widely in the area of photonics measurements, and he is a Senior Member of the IEEE.Host: Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -108
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Cache Architecture and Mapping for Packet Forwarding Applications
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
CENG SEMINAR SERIES"Cache Architecture and Mapping for Packet Forwarding Applications"Prof. Govind RamaswamySupercomputer Education and Research CentreIndian Institute of ScienceAbstract:Packet forwarding is a memory-intensive application requiring multiple accesses through a trie structure. With the requirement to process packets at line rates high performance routers need to forward millions of packets every second. Even with an efficient lookup algorithm like the LC-trie, each packet needs up to 5 memory accesses. Earlier work shows that a single cache for the nodes of an LC-trie can reduce the number of external memory accesses. We propose a Heterogeneous Segmented Cache Architecture (HSCA) for packet forwarding application that exploits the significantly different locality characteristics of accesses to level-one and the lower-level nodes of an LC-trie. Further, we improve the hit rate of the cache for level-one nodes, which are accessed more than 80% of the time, by introducing a novel two-level mapping based cache placement scheme to reduce conflict misses.Performance results reveal that our base HSCA scheme reduces the number of misses incurred with a unified scheme by as much as 25%, leading to a 32% speedup in average memory access time. Two-level mapping further enhances the performance of the base HSCA by up to 13% leading to an overall improvement of up to 40% over the unified scheme.Bio:Govindarajan Ramaswamy received his B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Madras University in 1981 and B.E. (Electronics and Communication) and Ph.D. (Computer Science) degrees from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1984 and 1989 respectively. He has held post-doctoral and faculty positions in Canadian Universities between 1989-95. Since 1995 he has been a faculty in the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre and the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His research interests are in the areas of High Performance Computing, compilation techniques for instruction-level parallelism, and computer architecture.Host: Prof. Viktor Prasanna, Ext. 04483
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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ALL-OPTICAL CONTROL ON A CHIP
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Prof. Benjamin J. Eggleton, ARC Federation Fellow, CUDOS Director, University of Sydney, AustraliaAbstract: My talk will overview the research highlights of CUDOS, an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence. CUDOS is a research consortium between five Australian Universities: The University of Sydney, Macquarie University, University of Technology Sydney, Australian National University and Swinburne University of Technology. The CUDOS research program has two central themes: nanophotonics and nonlinear photonics. Our goal of achieving ultra-high-speed, all-optical signal processing on a single photonic chip is addressed by combining these two themes to develop micron-scale photonic components incorporating nonlinear photonics processes. This talk will review progress on CUDOS flagship projects that represent ambitious cross-node collaborations toward this goal: i) Dispersionless slow light in photonic crystals; (ii) Chalcogenide-based all-optical switching and regeneration schemes based on low-loss waveguides and photonic crystals; and (iii) optofluidic tunable photonic components.Biography: Benjamin Eggleton is currently an ARC Federation Fellow and Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney. He is Director of the Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), an ARC Centre of Excellence. He studied at the University of Sydney, obtaining his BSc (Hons 1) in 1992 and his PhD in Physics in 1996. After graduation, he went to the United States to join Bell Laboratories, as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Optical Physics Department. He then transferred to the Optical Fiber Research Department as a Member of Technical Staff and was subsequently promoted to Technical Manager of the Optical Fibre Grating group. Soon after this, he became the Research Director of the Specialty Fiber Business Division of Bell Lab's parent company, Lucent Technologies; here, he drove Lucent's research program in optical fibre devices. He has co-authored more than 180 journal papers, has presented more than 40 invited and plenary presentations at international conferences, and has filed 35 patents. He has received several significant awards. Most notably, in 2004 he received the Prime Minister's Malcolm McIntosh Science Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year, in 2003 the ICO Prize (International Commission for Optics), and in 1998 was awarded the Adolph Lomb Medal from the Optical Society of America. Prof Eggleton will be presented with the 2007 Pawsey Medal from the Australian Academy of Sciences. Other achievements include the award of the distinguished lecturer award from the IEEE/LEOS, an R&D100 award, and being made an OSA fellow in 2003. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, a member of the editorial advisory board for Optics Communications and serves as Vice-President of the Australian Optical Society.Host: Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -108
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Honors Program Colloquium: Design of the Martin X-Braced Steel-String Guitar
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lecture offered by Mr. Will Rusch, Senior Software Engineer at Google, Inc.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students
Contact: Erika Chua
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Advancing the field of conservation of the worlds H,eritage ...
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Francois LeBlanc,
Head, Field Project,
Getty Conservation Institute,
Los Angeles, CAAdvancing the field of conservation of the world's heritage - The international work of the
Getty Conservation InstituteAbstractThe Getty Conservation Institute is one of four J. Paul Getty Trust programs. It works internationally to advance the field of conservation. It focuses on important conservation issues that most other international institutions do not cover. It has activities in more than 25 countries. The seminar will give a brief overview of some of these activities and describe the scientific research work being carried out in the GCI's science laboratories.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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High Speed Polarization Independent Signal Processing using Nonlinear Optics
Fri, Mar 30, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Professor Thomas E. Murphy, University of MarylandAbstract: In present-day optical networks, signal processing is performed with high-speed electrical circuits. Although electronic circuits perform well at speeds up to 40 Gb/s, in future networks the data rate could exceed the speed of conventional electronics. One solution to this problem is to replace costly high-speed electronic functions with ultrafast nonlinear optical processes.While many nonlinear effects have been exploited for optical signal processing, most have the disadvantage that they depend on the incoming polarization state, which cannot be easily controlled in fiber-optic networks. This polarization dependence is an obstacle that stands in the way of replacing electronic signal processing with optical rocessing. In this talk, I will discuss ongoing research at the University of Maryland to develop polarization insensitive nonlinear optical processing techniques for use in high-speed networks.Biography: Thomas Murphy studied physics and electrical engineering at Rice University, graduating with joint degrees in 1994. He then joined the NanoStructures Laboratory at MIT, where he pursued research in integrated optics and nanotechnology. He completed his M.S. degree in 1997 and his Ph.D. in 2000, both in Electrical Engineering. In 2000, he joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory as a staff member in the Optical Communications Technology Group where he studied ultrafast optical communications systems. In August 2002, he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Thomas is a member of the Optical Society of America, the IEEE, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi, and a recent recipient of the NSF CAREER award. His research interests include optical communications, short-pulse phenomena, numerical simulation, optical pulse propagation, nanotechnology, terahertz and microwave photonics, and integrated optics.Host: Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -108
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
