USC - Viterbi School of Engineering

Apr
14

Viterbi Student Council Funding Board Meeting
Fri, Apr 14, 2006
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity

Viterbi Student Council's Funding Board weekly meeting to discuss applications for funding.
Audiences: Funding Board only

Contact: Viterbi Student Council Funding Board
Apr
14

Apply now for VSC funding Board!
Fri, Apr 14, 2006
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity

Apply now for VSC Funding Board. You can find more information online at:http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/vsc/
Audiences: Undergraduate

Contact: Viterbi Student Council
Apr
14

IMSC Student Conference: Inventing the Future
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 10:00 AM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity

At the 10th Annual Student Conference, students will be presenting their latest research in Internet and Multimedia technologies, and speakers from Disney and more will give their perspective on the future state of technology.
Sign up in Powell Hall of Engineering, 3rd floor office. The event is catered and a great opportunity to network with researchers and industry.
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Auditorium
Audiences: Undergrad

Contact: IMSC Student Council
Apr
14

Eigenvalues and Singular Values of Random Matrices: Theory and Applications
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Communication Sciences Institute Seminar: Eigenvalues and Singular Values of Random Matrices: Theory and ApplicationsAntonia Tulino (University of Naples)Abstract:
Of late, random matrices have attracted great interest in the engineering community because of their applications to the communications and information theory on the fundamental limits of wireless communication noisy vector channels. The purpose of this talk is to illustrate this synergy between random matrix theory and information theory through several classes of channels that arise in wireless communications. These channels are characterized by random matrices that admit various statistical descriptions depending on the actual application. Motivated by the intuition drawn from various applications in communications, the _ and Shannon transforms turn out to be quite helpful at clarifying the exposition as well as the statement of many results. In this talk we revisit in terms of _- and Shannon-transform some of the main results in random matrix theory from the work of Mar_enko-Pastur in 1967 to the most recent asymptotic results in the contest of free probability theory and we give an extended summary of their main recent applications to wireless communication problems.In addition, recent results on the speed of convergence to the asymptotic limits are visited and used
to evaluate the probability density function of the mutual informationThroughout the talk, we apply the various findings to the fundamental limits of wireless communication with focus on several classes of vector channels that arise in wireless communications: • Code-division multiple-access (CDMA), with and without fading (both frequency-flat and frequency-selective) and with single and multiple receive antennas. • Multi-carrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA), which is the time-frequency dual of CDMA • Channels with multiple receive and transmit antennas, incorporating features such as antenna correlation, polarization, and line-of-sight components.For each of these channels, we analyze two performance measures of engineering interest: the average mutual information (highest data rate that can be conveyed reliably per unit bandwidth) and minimum mean-square error (smallest mean-square error that can be incurred estimating the channel input based on its noisy received observations), which are determined by the distribution of the singular values of the channel matrix.Bio:
Antonia Maria Tulino was born in Napoli, Italy, on September 12, 1971. She received the Dr. Engr. degree (summa cum laude) from the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy, in 1995 and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Napoli, Italy, in 1999. In 1999, she was a Research Scientist at the Center for Wireless Communications (CWC), Oulu, Finland. From January 2000 to February 2001, she was a post-doctoral visitor with Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. From February 2001 to November to 2002, she was Assistant Professor with the Dipartmento di Ingegneria delle Telecomunicazioni, Università degli Studi del Sannio, Benevento, Italy. From Novembre to 2002 she has been Associate Professor with the Dipartmento di Ingegneria Elettronica e delle Telecomunicazioni, Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II", Napoli, Italy. She is periodically appointed as visiting research staff member at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University. Her current research interests are in the area of statistical signal processing, information theory, random matrix theory.

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: michael neely
Apr
14

Microbial Fuel Cells: Little Bugs Could Make a Big Difference
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Orianna Bretschger
Ph.D. candidate in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science in collaboration with the USC Geobiology program
University of Southern CaliforniaAbstract
A microbial fuel cell is a system that utilizes the catalytic activity of microbes to convert the chemical energy of fuel into electrical energy. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) utilize a broad range of materials for fuel and a microbe (or microbial communities) as the catalyst. Given these components, MFCs are a very flexible technology that can be used in many applications. For example, MFCs have been employed in South Korea to treat waste water and yield a by-product of electricity for over 5 years! Additionally, MFC's are being explored as tools for understanding microbial physiology and are being optimized for portable power applications.
Future MFC applications will be enabled when the current densities produced by MFCs are improved, which will be dependent upon a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the microbial production of electricity. MFC design is an additional factor that must be considered for future applications. When these biological and engineering issues are fully understood and addressed, it should be possible to move up in scale to industrial applications, and down in scale to micro- and nano-applications: then MFC applications may only be limited by the imagination of the investigator!

Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall, Room 156
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes
Apr
14

Caltech Robotics and the Second DARPA Grand Challenge
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Engineering Honors Colloquium lecture given by Professor Richard Murray, the Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Faculty and Honors Program Students

Contact: Erika Chua
Apr
14

Viterbi Transfer Workshop
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions

Viterbi Transfer Workshops are one-hour presentations covering topics about the engineering curriculum, student services, research opportunities, transfer requirements and the application process. Viterbi transfer counselors will be available for individual coursework advisement on a first-come, first-serve basis in the afternoon following the program (transcripts required for advisement).RSVP: Please email us or call (800) 526-3347
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 110
Audiences: Prospective engineering transfer students

Contact: Undergraduate Admission
Apr
14

Meet USC (PM session)
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions

This half day program is designed for prospective freshmen and family members. Meet USC includes an information session on the University and the Admission process; a student led walking tour of campus and a meeting with us in the Viterbi School. Meet USC is designed to answer all of your questions about USC, the application process and financial aid.Reservations are required for Meet USC. Please call the USC Admission Center at (213) 740-6616 to check availability and to make an appointment. Be sure to tell them you are interested in Engineering!

Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Prospective Freshman and Family Members - RESERVATIONS REQUIRED

Contact: Viterbi Admission
Apr
14

Materials Science Seminar-- Thermoelectric Materials for Space Power Generation
Fri, Apr 14, 2006 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars

Presented by:Dr. Thierry Caillat
Principal Scientist
Power Systems and Sensors Section
Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of TechnologyAbstract:Of the various static energy conversion technologies considered for Radioisotope Power Systems for space applications, thermoelectric (TE) energy conversion has received the most interest. Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) generate electrical power by converting the heat released from the nuclear decay of radioactive isotopes (typically plutonium-238) into electricity using a thermoelectric converter. RTGs have been successfully used to power a number of space missions including the Appolo lunar missions, the Viking Mars landers, Pioneer 10 and 11, and the Voyager, Ulysses, Galileo, and Cassini outer planet spacecrafts. These generators have demonstrated their reliability over extended period of time (tens of years) and are compact, rugged, radiation resistant, scalable, and produce no noise, vibration or torque during operation. These properties have made RTGs suitable for autonomous missions in the extreme environment of the outer space and on planetary surface. Converter units use TE materials, which, when operating over a temperature gradient, produce a voltage called the Seebeck voltage. System conversion efficiency for state-of-practice RTGs is about 6%. The most widely used TE materials, in order of increasing temperature, are: Bismuth Telluride (Bi2Te3); lead Telluride (PbTe); tellurides of Antimony, Germanium and Silver (TAGS); lead Tin Telluride (PbSnTe); and silicon Germanium (SiGe). All of these materials except Bi2Te3 have been used in RTGs, which have been flown on space missions. A wide variety of physical, thermal, and thermoelectric properties requirements must be met for the design of reliable thermoelectric RTG converters. An overview of various thermoelectric phenomena and materials is provided in this talk. Space applications and requirements for thermoelectric materials are discussed. Current trends in thermoelectric material research are briefly introduced.First year MASC students are required to attend.
Location: Vivian Hall of Engineering (VHE) - 217
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce