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Events for the 5th week of April
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Apr 27, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Vadim Backman, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Walter Dill Scott Professor (Northwestern University)
Talk Title: Nanoscale and functional optical imaging for colon cancer diagnostics and risk-stratification
Abstract: Initiation of carcinogenesis is accompanied by alterations in tumor microenvironment, cellular metabolism and epigenetics. Understanding these early events depends on our ability to image these subtle nanoarchitectural and functional processes. The talk discusses a suite of novel fiber-optic and in vitro diagnostic optical imaging techniques that have recently been developed to quantify intracellular and tissue morphology at the nanoscale and provide high-resolution imaging of metabolism and microangiography. The techniques have shown promise as a new platform for highly sensitive, cost-effective and non-invasive colon cancer screening and prognostication.A particularly significant application is colon cancer screening enabled by the detection of field carcinogenesis via the analysis of the nanoarchitecture of rectal cells with the objective to increase the detection rate of screen-relevant colorectal neoplasia while reducing overdiagnosis.
Biography: http://www.bme.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/backman.html
Host: Qifa Zhou/Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Seminar in Biomedical Engineering
Mon, Apr 27, 2015 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Vadim Backman, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Walter Dill Scott Professor (Northwestern University)
Talk Title: Nanoscale and functional optical imaging for colon cancer diagnostics and risk-stratification
Abstract: Initiation of carcinogenesis is accompanied by alterations in tumor microenvironment, cellular metabolism and epigenetics. Understanding these early events depends on our ability to image these subtle nanoarchitectural and functional processes. The talk discusses a suite of novel fiber-optic and in vitro diagnostic optical imaging techniques that have recently been developed to quantify intracellular and tissue morphology at the nanoscale and provide high-resolution imaging of metabolism and microangiography. The techniques have shown promise as a new platform for highly sensitive, cost-effective and non-invasive colon cancer screening and prognostication.A particularly significant application is colon cancer screening enabled by the detection of field carcinogenesis via the analysis of the nanoarchitecture of rectal cells with the objective to increase the detection rate of screen-relevant colorectal neoplasia while reducing overdiagnosis.
Biography: http://www.bme.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/backman.html
Host: Qifa Zhou/Stanley Yamashiro
Location: OHE 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloquium: Ilias Diakonikolas (University of Edinburgh) - Algorithmic Approaches in Unsupervised Learning
Tue, Apr 28, 2015 @ 09:45 AM - 10:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ilias Diakonikolas, University of Edinburgh
Talk Title: Algorithmic Approaches in Unsupervised Learning
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: The growing scale of modern data sets and our increasingly ambitious inferential goals have highlighted new algorithmic challenges. In this talk, I will discuss recent progress in this vein that lies at the interface of computer science and statistics. I will highlight how the algorithmic perspective brings novel insights and leads to computationally efficient methods for classical statistical problems.
In this talk, I will focus on a core problem in unsupervised learning: how to infer information about a distribution based on random samples. An important goal in this context is understanding the structure in the data without making strong assumptions on its form. I will describe a unified algorithmic framework that yields new, provably efficient estimators for several natural and well-studied statistical models, including mixtures of structured distribution families (e.g., gaussian, log-concave, etc.). This framework provides a fairly complete picture of the sample and computational complexities for fundamental inference tasks, including density estimation and hypothesis testing.
I will also briefly describe some of my other work on learning, including supervised learning with missing and noisy data, as well as connections between these questions and seemingly unrelated problems in game theory and complexity theory.
The event will be available to stream HERE
Biography: Ilias Diakonikolas is an Assistant Professor in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He holds a diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia University (2010) where he was advised by Mihalis Yannakakis. He received a best thesis award for his doctoral dissertation and an honorable mention in the 2009 George Nicholson competition from the INFORMS society. Before moving to Edinburgh he spent two years (2010-2012) as the Simons postdoctoral fellow in theoretical computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Ilias has worked in several areas of algorithms, including optimization, computational learning, and computational economics. His research focus is on the algorithmic foundations of massive data sets, in particular on designing efficient algorithms for statistics and machine learning.
Host: Computer Science Department
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series
Tue, Apr 28, 2015 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Uday V. Shanbhag, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME), Pennsylvania State University
Talk Title: On the Solution of Optimization and Variational Problems in Misspecified Regimes
Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series
Abstract: We consider a class of optimization and variational problems that are misspecified in a parametric sense. Resolving this misspecification is assumed to require the solution of a distinct convex learning problem. Traditional sequential approaches that first solve the learning problem and then solve the correctly specified computational problem require that exact or accurate solutions are available in finite time. We consider an approach where both problems are solved simultaneously in optimization and variational regimes via standard first-order projected gradient, subgradient, and extra gradient methods. We provide global convergence results and rate analysis for the schemes where we quantify the degradation from learning. In the second part of the talk, we consider stochastic generalizations of the problem that require coupled stochastic approximation schemes. We will also mention related efforts to solve problems distributed stochastic optimization problems on time-varying graphs and misspecified MDPs. Finally, time permitting, we may discuss some ongoing research initiatives in the area of power systems and markets.
Biography: Since fall 2012, Uday V. Shanbhag has been an associate professor in the department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME) at the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to arriving at Penn. State, from 2006-“2012, he was first an assistant professor, and subsequently a tenured associate professor, in the department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems engineering (ISE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research honors include the triennial A.W. Tucker Prize by the mathematical programming society (MPS) in 2006, the Computational Optimization and Applications (COAP) best paper award (with advisor Walter Murray) in 2007, and the best theoretical paper award in the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) in 2013 (with Angelia Nedi'c and Farzad Yousefian). Additionally, he was a finalist for the Microsoft Faculty fellowship (2008) and was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in 2012 from the Operations Research program. Several of his doctoral students have been recognized by a range of honors including Uma Ravat (best student paper prize at the triennial International Conference on Stochastic Programming (2010)), Aswin Kannan (finalist for best student paper prize at the triennial International Conference on Stochastic Programming (2010)) and Huibing Yin (finalist for the best student paper prize at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (2009)). Uday V. Shanbhag has a Ph.D. from Stanford University's department of Management Science and Engineering (2006), with a concentration in operations research and was associated with the Systems Optimization Laboratory when at Stanford. He also holds masters and undergraduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge (in Operations Research) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, respectively.
Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
More Information: Seminar-Shanbhag.docx
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 206
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Society of Women Engineers 8th General Meeting
Tue, Apr 28, 2015 @ 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
Please check out the SWE USC facebook page for more event details!
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Society of Women Engineers Society of Women Engineers
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CS General Faculty Meeting in RTH 217
Wed, Apr 29, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Workshops & Infosessions
Event details email only to attendees. Closed session.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 217
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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IIIT Hyderabad: Overview and Faculty Positions
Wed, Apr 29, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Workshops & Infosessions
Dr. P. J. Narayanan, Director of the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-H) will give a presentation about the institute, ongoing research and education programs, and potential faculty positions. IIIT-H is an autonomous research university set up in 1998 under a not-for-profit public private partnership (N-PPP) model. It was the first of the IIITs in the country. IIIT-H faculty hold PhDs from universities like CMU, UMD, Princeton, INRIA, Cornell, GeorgiaTech, University of Tokyo, USC, Aalto, IITs, IISc, etc. The friendly and scholarly internal environment is central to the vibrancy of the institute. It attracts top students across the country via the JEE (Main) exam. IIIT-H currently has over 70 faculty members and over 1600 students.
IIIT-H has established an ambitious goal to be among the very top of institutions in the world in our areas by 2025. This needs focused research in several segments, productive collaborations, and strong internationalization to attract best faculty, postdocs, and students from all over the world.
The institute has no departments; it is organized as research centers. IIIT-H naturally concentrates on all areas of computing. It also engages deeply with areas in which computing connects with other disciplines. These include Building Sciences, Computational Natural Sciences, Computational Linguistics, Exact Humanities, and Cognitive Sciences. IIIT-H currently has over 100 PhD students and 200 MS by Research students across the different centers. The institute has a vigorous academic environment, with active involvement of several undergraduate students. We introduced several innovative ideas in the BTech curriculum to facilitate UG research. IIIT-H faculty and researchers consistently publish in international conferences and journals.
IIIT-H has made a deep mark in research and education in the country. Dataquest has ranked IIIT-H #3 among all technology institutions from 2012 onwards. IIIT-H students have been representing India in the World finals of ACM Intercollegiate Programming Contest every year from 2009. Students also won prizes at competitions such as CanSat, DUC, RoboCup, and others. IIIT-H is very active in taking research to the society through societal projects and start-up companies.
IIIT-H as an institute has the model, drive, and team to be among the top global institutions. IIIT-H is augmenting its faculty team significantly over the coming years with this in mind. IIIT-H invites highly-driven individuals to both long-term faculty positions and short-term post-doc or visiting positions. IIIT-H is hiring in all areas, with special focus on Machine Learning, Communications, and Hardware/Software Systems. IIIT-H welcomes individuals from all over the world with no citizenship restrictions.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 306
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kathy Kassar
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Viterbi Impact Program Volunteer Recognition & Mixer
Thu, Apr 30, 2015 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
The Viterbi Impact Program (VIP) connects undergraduate Viterbi students with the Los Angeles community. VIP participants play a vital role in bringing engineering to the community as they work as partners with local schools and organizations.
We will be recognizing 2014-2015 VIP volunteers as well as providing the opportunity for interested volunteers to learn more about joining the program!
Refreshments will be served!
To register, click here https://myviterbi.usc.edu/vasa/?PostingID=1234567970.Location: 211
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Jenny Vazquez-Akim
Event Link: https://myviterbi.usc.edu/vasa/?PostingID=1234567970
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Intel Information Session
Thu, Apr 30, 2015 @ 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Information Session is for PhD students in EE, Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, Optics.
Flyer with more informationLocation: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
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Center for Engineering Diversity Industry Advisory Board Meeting
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 09:30 AM - 02:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Quarterly meeting of Center for Engineering Diversity industry partners.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Industry Advisory Board members
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity
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AI Seminar-Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Xiaoran Yan , USC/ISI
Talk Title: Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework
Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar
Abstract: The interplay between a dynamic process and topology of a network on which it unfolds affects observed network structure. In this talk, we examine the impact of this the interaction on the identification of central nodes and communities in networks. We introduce the generalized Laplacian framework which extends the traditional Laplacian beyond simple diffusion. By mathematically relating dynamic processes to random walks on a transformed network, the generalized Laplacian formulation unifies different measures of centrality and community quality. Thus, a node's centrality describes its participation in the dynamics taking place on the network, and communities are groups of nodes that interact more frequently with each other according to the rules of the dynamic process. We prove that the classic Cheeger's inequality, which relates the spectrum of the Laplacian matrix to the conductance of the best cluster in the network, can be extended to this generalized setting, providing a method for fast graph partitioning under any dynamics. We demonstrate empirically that different dynamic processes lead to divergent views of structure of synthetic and real-world networks.
Biography: Xiaoran Yan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Kristina Lerman's group at ISI-USC. His work focuses on modelling and analyzing dynamics on networks as well as the underlying topological structures. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science at University of New Mexico.
Host: Kristina Lerman
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr. Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
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Center for Engineering Diversity Faculty Advisory Board Meeting
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Quarterly meeting of Viterbi faculty members who provide guidance and support to The Center for Engineering Diversity.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Faculty Advisory Board Members
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity
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CS Colloquium: Ari Shapiro (ICT) - Models of Motion, Movement and Interaction for Digital Characters
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 01:00 PM - 02:20 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ari Shapiro, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Talk Title: Models of Motion, Movement and Interaction for Digital Characters
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Research in animation has progressed where capture technologies have allowed recording and playback of human motion. For example, a human face can be recorded speaking an utterance, then accurately modeled in 3D. However, making the 3D face produce an utterance that has not previously been recorded requires an understanding of how the face reacts to the speech that is generated, how the head and neck must move to accommodate that sound as well as that expression, and how the other parts of the face and eyes act during the speech. Similarly, motion capture techniques allow the capture and replication of human walking or running as performed by the original actor, but arbitrary movement through uneven terrain with obstacles cannot be synthesized accurately, since the complexity of the human balance and structure is not accurately modeled using only kinematic points in space over time.
Thus, while motion replication into a 3D environment is fairly well understood across a number of areas, the fundamental question of how to synthesize movement through a controllable model of humans remains elusive. The human body is extremely complex, and models of movement for high energy activities such as running differ greatly from other complex phenomena such as talking or gesturing. Thus, while it is possible to replicate a recorded motion, generating a controllable model of movement for a virtual human remains an open research problem for many different areas, ranging from facial expression to speech to gross movement. In addition, the motivations for human movement and motion are often driven by cognitive functions, so a better understanding of human movement requires a similar understanding of the cognitive aspects that motivate it.
In this talk, I will describe my research in generating various controllable models of motion and movement for animated 3D characters. My objective is to better understand how people physically move, interact and respond to people and objects in their environment By better understanding how people move about and the motivations for doing so, we can create models of human movement and behavior that can be controlled within a virtual or digital space, thus enabling convincing virtual characters that can be used for various types of training and simulation. The embodiment of movement and behavior of a person into a controllable, digital model allows for the creation of complicated scenarios that can be effective substitutes and training environments for real-world experiences.
The lecture will be available to stream HERE. (Right Click, New Tab for optimal results.)
Biography: Ari Shapiro currently works as a Research Scientist at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, where his focus is on synthesizing realistic animation for virtual characters as lead of the Character Animation and Simulation research group. Shapiro has published many academic articles in the field of computer graphics and animation for virtual characters, and is a seven-time SIGGRAPH speaker.
For several years, he worked on character animation tools and algorithms in the research and development departments of visual effects and video games companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, LucasArts and Rhythm and Hues Studios. He has worked on many feature-length films, and holds film credits in The Incredible Hulk and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. In addition, he holds video games credits in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series.
He completed his Ph.D. in computer science at UCLA in 2007 in the field of computer graphics with a dissertation on character animation using motion capture, physics and machine learning. He also holds an M.S. in computer science from UCLA, and a B.A. in computer science from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Host: CS Department
Webcast: https://bluejeans.com/577232541Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 108
WebCast Link: https://bluejeans.com/577232541
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Senior Design Expo
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 02:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Viterbi seniors will be presenting their capstone course projects to a judging panel of faculty, staff, and industry partners, with winners receiving cash prizes. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors can learn what types of projects they will work on and vote for their favorite, as well as see how their current classes can be applied to future engineering projects.
More information: bit.ly/seniordesignexpoLocation: Epstein Family Engineering Plaza (Engineering Quad)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Christine D'Arcy
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PhD Defense - Matthew Brown
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 02:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Candidate: Matthew Brown
Committee:
Milind Tambe (Chair)
Jonathan Gratch
Ewa Deelman
Richard John
Dale Kiefer
Title: Balancing Tradeoffs in Security Games: Handling Defenders and Adversaries with Multiple Objectives
Abstract:
Stackelberg security games (SSG) have received a significant amount of attention in the literature for modeling the strategic interactions between a defender and an adversary, in which the defender has a limited amount of security resources to protect a set of targets from a potential attack by the adversary. SSGs are at the heart of several significant decision-support applications deployed in real world security domains. All of these applications rely on standard assumptions made in SSGs, including that the defender and the adversary each have a single objective which is to maximize their expected utility. Given the successes and real world impact of previous SSG research, there is a natural desire to push towards increasingly complex security domains, leading to a point where considering only a single objective is no longer appropriate.
My thesis focuses on incorporating multiple objectives into SSGs. With multiple conflicting objectives for either the defender or adversary, there is no one solution which maximizes all objectives simultaneously and tradeoffs between the objectives must be made. Thus, my thesis provides two main contributions by addressing the research challenges raised by considering SSGs with (1) multiple defender objectives and (2) multiple adversary objectives. These contributions consist of approaches for modeling, calculating, and analyzing the tradeoffs between objectives in a variety of different settings. First, I consider multiple defender objectives resulting from diverse adversary threats where protecting against each type of threat is treated as a separate objective for the defender. Second, I investigate the defender's need to balance between the exploitation of collected data and the exploration of alternative strategies in patrolling domains. Third, I explore the necessary tradeoff between the efficacy and the efficiency of the defender's strategy in screening domains. Forth, I examine multiple adversary objectives for heterogeneous populations of boundedly rational adversaries that no longer strictly maximize expected utility.
The contributions of my thesis provide the novel game models and algorithmic techniques required to incorporate multiple objectives into SSGs. My research advances the state of the art in SSGs and opens up the model to new types of security domains that could not have been handled previously. As a result, I developed two applications for real world security domains that either have been or will be tested and evaluated in the field.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
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Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mahsa Moslehi and Charanraj Thimmisetty, Astani CEE Ph.D. Candidates
Talk Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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27th Annual Center for Engineering Diversity Banquet
Fri, May 01, 2015 @ 05:30 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Receptions & Special Events
Annual celebration of graduating students and the accomplishments of The Minority Engineering Graduate Association, The National Society of Black Engineers, Queers in Engineering, Science and Technology, The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and The Society of Women Engineers.
RSVP required.Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Ballroom A
Audiences: Center for Engineering Diversity students
Contact: Center for Engineering Diversity