USC - Viterbi School of Engineering

Mar
05

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
Mar
05

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
Mar
05

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 Angeles
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Adam Wyatt
Mar
05

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
Mar
05

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
Mar
05

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
Mar
05

Northrop Grumman Information Session
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions

Join representatives of this company as they share general company information and available opportunities.
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106
Audiences: Current Engineering Undergraduate/Graduate Students

Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
Mar
05

Engineers Without Borders - USC General Meeting
Mon, Mar 05, 2007 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity

The USC Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USC) partners with developing communities to improve their quality of life through the implementation of environmentally sustainable, equitable, and economical engineering projects while developing socially and environmentally conscious engineering students.
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 105
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: EWB