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Events for April 18, 2007
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Walk-In Wednesdays: Career Services Advising
Wed, Apr 18, 2007
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Student Activity
Please feel free to come in during these walk-in hours! No appointment is necessary. Come in for resume reviews, internship information, or general engineering career advice.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 218
Audiences: Current Engineering Students!
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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The transformation design method and metamaterials: tools to realize invisibility cloaks and other i
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
David SchurigMing Hsieh
Department of Electrical EngineeringSEMINAR
"The transformation design method and metamaterials: tools to realize invisibility cloaks and other interesting devices"Abstract:
I will explain how the transformation design method works. One begins this design process by imagining a fictitious space with an interesting or useful property, for example, a hole for hiding things, or a "dense" region that concentrates energy. I will explain how such fictitious spaces can be described mathematically by a coordinate transformation. Then I will explain how the theories of such coordinate transformations and the form invariance of Maxwell's equations leads directly to a material specification. This material specification can implement the electromagnetic properties of the interesting fictitious spaces in the boring, approximately "flat", three dimensional spaces in which we live.
We have used this method to design invisibility cloaks, but the method is quite general and can be used to design a wide variety of interesting devices that guide, concentrate or shape electromagnetic fields in ways that would be difficult to manage with other design methodologies. Applications range from stealth to energy conversion and distribution to wireless communications to biomedical imaging.
The drawback of the method is the complexity of the material specifications that it produces, which have particular anisotropy (variation with angle) and inhomogeneity (variation with position). Only with recent advances in the field of metamaterials can these specifications be realized. I will discuss how metamaterials accomplish this and what their limitations are, e.g. bandwidth, absorption, frequency range etc.
I will discuss in detail the recent implementation of an invisibility cloak in the microwave spectrum. Unlike, traditional stealth, an invisibility cloak reduces both reflection and shadow. Thus both these ways of detecting an object, (the reflection of electromagnetic waves incident on the front of an object and the blocking of electromagnetic waves originating from behind the object) are weakened. If such a cloak were implemented for visible light (a daunting task), then when one looked at the cloaked object one would see the scene behind it.Biography:
David Schurig received his BS in Engineering Physics from U.C. Berkeley, and then worked at Lawrence Berkeley Lab on laser ablation and photoacoustic spectroscopy. He attended physics graduate school at U.C. San Diego and received a PhD in 2002 for his thesis on negative index media, the perfect lens and related structures. David also worked for the California Space Institute, performing space mission feasibility studies, and for Tristan Technologies, designing and building, cryogenically cooled, SQUID-based instruments. David is now a post doctoral fellow at Duke University. He is designing invisibility cloaks and other interesting devices using the transformation method and implementing them with metamaterials.
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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The Changing Landscape of Transportation Decision Making
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University Calendar
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD 2007 THOMAS B. DEEN DISTINGUISHED LECTUREProfessor Genevieve GiulianoSchool of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626, giuliano@usc.eduABSTRACT: This presentation examines the changes taking place in the way transportation policy and investment decisions are made. To provide an understanding of these changes, they are placed in the larger context of major trends in public-sector decision making: devolution, fragmentation, and privatization. The changes taking place in the transport sector are viewed as consistent with larger trends. The changes pose particular challenges in transportation because of its unique characteristics, and they have contributed to four problems: (a) preserving and enhancing system network benefits, (b) avoiding inefficient decisions, (c) solving transportation's externalities, and (d) ensuring accountability. The Alameda Corridor is used as an example of managing the new decision-making landscape. The presentation closes with thoughts on improving the transportation decision-making process.18 April at noon, second floor of Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall Lunch is provided if you RSVP to Jeanne Nguyen at jeann@usc.edu
Location: Ralph And Goldy Lewis Hall (RGL) - 2nd Floor
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Evaluating and Negotiating Job Offers
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Decision Time! How do you decipher and evaluate job offers? How do you begin the negotiations phase? Attend this workshop and learn helpful tips that will help guide you through the process.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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Modeling and Simulation of Geological CO2 Sequestration Processes
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 12:45 PM - 02:00 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lyman L. Handy ColloquiumpresentsDr. Margot GerritsenPetroleum Engineering Program, Stanford UniversityGeological sequestration of CO2 in depleted oil or gas reservoir, deep aquifers or coalbeds is increasingly looked at as a viable way to reduce the atmospheric concentration of this greenhouse gas. To address the important questions of the feasibility, risks and costs of geological CO2 sequestration processes, researchers frequently turn to computer simulations. Reliable simulation is however quite challenging. We will discuss the state-of-knowledge in geological sequestration, the numerical challenges and research required to advance this field.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Takimoto Idania
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Modeling and Simulations of Earthquake Phenomena
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
DR. NADIA LAPUSTA, CalTechIn earthquake studies, the most important practical problems are the assessment of earthquake hazard and possibility of earthquake prediction. To address these issues in a satisfactory manner, detailed understanding of physics and mechanics of earthquakes is needed.How do earthquakes nucleate and arrest? What are the appropriate descriptions and parameters of fault friction during both quasi-static and dynamic deformation? How do thermal effects - such as flash heating, pore-fluid pressurization, and melting - influence dynamic rupture propagation? What is the stress state on faults and the surrounding crust? Such fundamental questions still evade understanding or consensus. Our studies are directed towards answering these questions by formulating earthquake models with constitutive laws motivated by experimental observations and physically-based theories of how fault materials respond. The goal is to simulate the response of those models in terms of spontaneous sequences of earthquakes and to find the relevant models by comparing simulated features of individual events and event sequences with observations.While most earthquake modelers consider dynamic rupture propagation in a single earthquake, we have been developing a methodology that allows us to simulate spontaneous sequences of earthquakes while fully resolving all stages of each model earthquake: quasi-static accelerating slip during the nucleation process, the resulting inertially-controlled rupture, post-seismic deformation, and ongoing slippage throughout the loading period in creeping fault regions. The resulting simulations are very challenging because of the wide range of temporal and spatial scales involved.We will present our modeling efforts and results on features of the shear rupture sequences, the process of the instability nucleation, modes of dynamic rupture propagation, and strong but brittle interface behavior.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - -203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Masako Okamoto
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Laufer Keynote Lecture
Wed, Apr 18, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Reflections on the Turbulence Problem Anatol Roshko Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories California Institute of TechnologyPasadena, CAReception: 2:30PM-3:30 PMSeminar 3:30PM-4:30PM The turbulence problem has been around a long time—since the latter part of the 19th century. Toward the end of his large book on Hydrodynamics, Edition 3, 1906, Lamb opens the section on "Turbulent Motion" with the statement, "It remains to call attention to the chief outstanding difficulty of our subject." Since then the importance has not diminished and the "difficulty" continues to get unprecedented attention. Because of its importance as an "unsolved problem" of physics and an ongoing problem for engineering, ideas about its solution and support for its clarification continue to develop. But just what is the "turbulence problem", or problems, and what might be the "solution", or solutions? This talk explores those questions in the historical background of the various developments, ideas and characters that have participated.
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
