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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for the 1st week of May
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering TalkMon, May 02, 2011
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Receptions & Special Events
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. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. Please visit http://usconnect.usc.edu/ to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Incident Investigation/Analysis (IIA)
Mon, May 02, 2011 @ 08:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Aviation Safety and Security Program
University Calendar
This course is designed for managers and supervisors who may be required to investigate, implement or review safety findings and recommendation resulting from aviation incidents. This course presents principles of Management, Investigation and Analysis.
Location: Aviation Safety & Security Campus
Audiences: Aviation Professionals
Contact: Harrison Wolf
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Oral Defense Dissertation: Vision-Based Studies for Structural Health Monitoring and Condition Assessment of Structures
Mon, May 02, 2011 @ 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mohammad Jahanshahi, Civil Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
Abstract: Automated health monitoring and maintenance of civil infrastructure systems is an active yet challenging area of research. Current structure inspection standards require an inspector to visually assess structure conditions. Visual inspection of structures is a highly qualitative method. If a region is inaccessible, binoculars must be used to detect and characterize defects. A less time-consuming and inexpensive alternative to current monitoring methods is to use a robotic system that can inspect structures more frequently, and perform autonomous damage detection. Nondestructive evaluation techniques (NDE) are innovative approaches for structural health monitoring. Among several possible techniques, the use of optical instrumentation (e.g., digital cameras), image processing and computer vision are promising approaches as nondestructive testing methods for structural health monitoring to complement sensor-based approaches. The feasibility of using image processing techniques to detect deterioration in structures has been acknowledged by leading researches in the field. This study represents the efforts that have been taken place by the author to form, implement, and evaluate several vision-based approaches that are promising for robust condition assessment of structures. Several illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the capabilities, as well as the limitations, of the proposed vision-based inspection procedures.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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USC Water Institute Seminar
Mon, May 02, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Christina Tague , Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UC Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Forest Eco-hydrology in a Changing Climate: Integrating modelling and measurements
Abstract: Forests are a key provider of ecosystems services throughout the globe. Understanding and ultimately predicting how forest are likely to respond to a changing climate is an active area of interest and research. While some model and empirical studies show increased in forest growth, particularly in temperature limited environments, several recent monitoring studies suggest that forest mortality may be increasing in response to greater or more frequent drought stress. Given the importance of water-limitation and drought stress as a control on how forests will respond to a changing climate, models that explicitly link forest productivity with hydrology are essential tools. In this talk I will provide an overview of RHESSys, a coupled model of ecosystem biogeochemical cycling and spatially distributed hydrology. RHESSys is an open-source tool that integrates state-of-the art science based understanding of forest structure and function with observational data from multiple sources, including point measures such as streamflow and carbon flux tower data and spatial data from remote sensing products. I will present a number of case studies including forests in both natural and urban environments where we have used RHESSys to examine forest response to both historic and projected future climate variability and change. These case studies focus
explicitly on eco-hydrologic interactions and demonstrate critical linkages among forest water use, carbon cycling, drought stress mortality, soil moisture and streamflow. I
conclude by summarizing future directions for RHESSys as a tool for investigating the vulnerability of forest health and water resources to changing climate and land management scenarios.
Biography: Dr. Christina Tague (Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at University of California , Santa Barbara). Dr. Tague investigates climate and landuse/land cover change impacts on streamflow regimes and watershed biogeochemical cycling , emphasizing the interactions between hydrology and ecosystem processes. She specializes in the development and application of spatial models. Her work seeks to design models as a flexible, adaptive framework for integrating conceptual understanding with data from a variety of sources, including intensive field-based monitoring and experimentation and remote sensing. Dr. Tague is
one of the principle developers of RHESSys, Regional hydro-ecologic simulation system, a modeling framework that provides science-based information on the spatial patterns of vulnerability in water quantity and quality, and ecosystem health. Current projects include modeling climate change impacts on snowpack and summer streamflow patterns in the mountains of the Western US, and examinin how urbanization alters drainage patterns and associated biogeochemical cycling at part of the Baltimore Long Term Ecological Research Site and in selected Southern California watersheds. Dr. Tague received her Ph.D. from the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto,
Canada and has an undergraduate degree from the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Host: Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
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VARC Spring Study Day
Tue, May 03, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Come join other Viterbi undergrads and get ready for finals!
Spring Study Day will be held on Tuesday, May 3rd in Ronald Tutor Hall.
⢠10am-1pm: Upper class study partners will be on hand to answer questions for select 100- and 200-level engineering classes: AME 150, MATH 126, MATH 226, MATH 245, PHYS 151, PHYS 152
⢠1pm-4pm: Study space available throughout first and second floors of RTH.
⢠Snacks and care packages will be provided to participants.
Just come to the lobby of RTH with your books, notes, and a desire to study for finals!
Stop by VARC (RTH 222) for more information! Or email viterbi.varc@usc.edu.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) -
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Academic Resource Center
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Demystifying Ultra-Low Power VLSI Design: from Basic Misconceptions to Advanced Techniques
Tue, May 03, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Massimo Alioto, University of Siena (Italy), UC Berkeley
Talk Title: Demystifying Ultra-Low Power VLSI Design: from Basic Misconceptions to Advanced Techniques
Abstract: In this seminar, basic concepts and advanced techniques for ultra-low power (ULP) VLSI digital circuits and systems are presented, with emphasis on the related opportunities and challenges. Common misconceptions and incorrect beliefs are thoroughly discussed based on a coherent and fresh perspective. Variation-aware design strategies to reduce the minimum operating voltage and enable robust ULV operation are discussed. The dependence of the minimum energy point on design knobs is discussed at various levels of abstraction (from physical to the micro-architecture level), and yield is explicitly considered as further dimension in the design space. The important (and often overlooked) role played by the minimum operating voltage is clarified, along with its relation with the optimal voltage minimizing energy, which is currently the subject of a controversial debate within the scientific community.
New directions and on-going work to address various issues in extreme ULP systems will be presented. In particular, innovative highly-efficient âsmartâ on-chip DC-DC converters will be presented, and alternative logic styles will be introduced to demonstrate pW/gate operation.
Biography: Massimo Alioto (Mâ01âSMâ07) is with the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Siena since 2002, where he became Associate Professor in 2005. In 2007, he was a Visiting Professor at EPFL - Lausanne (Switzerland). In 2009-2011, he is Visiting Professor at BWRC â UCBerkeley, investigating on next-generation ultra-low power circuits and wireless nodes. He has authored or co-authored more than 160 publications on journals (55+, mostly IEEE Transactions) and conference proceedings. He is an IEEE Senior Member, Chair of the âVLSI Systems and Applicationsâ Technical Committee of the IEEE CASS, and he was IEEE CASS Distinguished Lecturer in 2009-2010. He serves as Track Chair for several conferences (ISCAS, ICCD, ICECS, ICM) and as Associate Editor of several journals (including the IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems). He was Technical Program Chair for the conference ICM 2010.
Host: Massoud Pedram
Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 118
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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Epstein ISE Research Seminar
Tue, May 03, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Harriet Black Nembhard, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, Director, Center for Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (CIHDS), The Pennsylvania State University
Talk Title: "Experimental Designs for Multiple Stage Manufacturing of Nano-Enabled Medical Instruments"
Abstract: Surgical procedures have been trending toward minimally invasive approaches often using an endoscope inserted into the body via a natural orifice (e.g., the mouth). The use of nano-particulates has held promise in the development of smaller devices that can be accommodated in an endoscope. A challenge, however, is to increase the device yield and quality. This seminar will address the work of an interdisciplinary team to develop a novel lost mold rapid infiltration forming (LMRIF) fabrication process for these devices and specifically focus on new experimental designs suited for the required fabrication.
In particular, the multiple-stage LMRIF process has restrictions on the randomization, meaning that the allocation of the experimental material and the order in which the individual trials of the experiment are to be performed are not randomly determined because certain process variables are âhard to change" or âexpensive to changeâ. Accordingly, we use design of experiments (DOE) principles to develop the multistage fractional factorial split-plot (MSFFSP) design with the combination of both split-plot and split-block structure. Several statistical properties are derived and its application is demonstrated in the yield improvement of the prototype devices fabricated with the LMRIF process. Furthermore, we develop a framework of DOE and robust parameter design (RPD) to expedite the transition of the technology into robust products that can be produced with minimum variability and defects.
This work has had a significant broader impact on the collaborative work in healthcare delivery development. The opportunities future work on the project related to DOE, accelerated testing, and reliability, will be briefly discussed.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - Room 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering Talk
Wed, May 04, 2011
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Receptions & Special Events
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. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. Please visit http://usconnect.usc.edu/ to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Epstein ISE Research Seminar
Wed, May 04, 2011 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Enrique del Castillo, Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering and Professor of Statistics, Penn State University
Talk Title: "Statistical Analysis of Shape and Profile Data in Manufacturing and Engineering Design"
Abstract: In this presentation I will summarize work performed during the last 3 years in the field of Statistical Analysis and Optimization of processes that generate complicated data. In the first part of the talk I will describe Statistical Shape Analysis (SSA) techniques and their use in Manufacturing. SSA has been used mainly to model 2 and 3-dimensional shapes of biological interest in the natural sciences. In manufacturing applications, the data is instead a cloud of points or âlandmarksâ, the locations of the measured points typically acquired with a CMM. After giving a brief review of SSA techniques, I will discuss new methods for the analysis of experiments where the responses are the shapes of manufactured parts. In practice, the usual approach to determine how controllable factors affect the shape of a part is to estimate the âform errorâ of the part and conduct an ANOVA on these errors. This, however, neglects the geometrical features of the data. Instead, I will present new ANOVA tests on the shapes themselves and I will contrast them with previously proposed alternatives. In the second part of this talk I will discuss the analysis and optimization of processes where the response is instead a one-dimensional curve or âprofileâ, a type of data of considerable relevance in Engineering Design and in certain computer experiments. I will discuss Bayesian modeling methods and the subsequent optimization of the profile responses via Spatio-Temporal Gaussian processes. These methods are illustrated with various Engineering Design examples.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - Room 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Georgia Lum
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Meet USC: Admission Presentation, Campus Tour, & Engineering Talk
Fri, May 06, 2011
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Receptions & Special Events
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. This program occurs twice, once at 8:30 a.m. and again at 12:30 p.m. Please visit http://usconnect.usc.edu/ to check availability and make an appointment. Be sure to list an Engineering major as your "intended major" on the webform!
Location: USC Admission Center
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
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Process Improvement in Health Care
Fri, May 06, 2011 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: David Belson, PhD, USC Viterbi School of Engineering Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Talk Title: Process Improvement in Health Care
Abstract: Course Overview
The Process Improvement in Healthcare short course combines the field of Industrial and Systems Engineering with the needs of the healthcare industry. The National Academy of Engineering found that an inefficient American healthcare system causes 100,000 preventable deaths and the unnecessary loss of $500 billion each year.* In order to reduce costs and improve patient care, course participants will learn methods to improve efficiency in healthcare processes.
* Grose, T. (2008, October). Life support systems: Engineers offer ways to get American healthcare off the âcriticalâ list. ASEE PRISM.
Course Topics
Useful, practical and popular process improvement methods will be explained and students will have an opportunity to implement many of them, including:
* Process Mapping - how to understand a process with the use of diagrams and graphics
* Queuing - understanding models of processes and their analysis
* Materials management - inventory, its control and optimizing
* Six Sigma basics - how this popular approach is used to reduce unwanted variability and improve quality
* Lean thinking basics - how this popular approach is used to eliminate waste
* Facility layout - why do some arrangements harm productivity and others help it
* Computer simulation - how to make use of this valuable tool
* Focus Groups - how to organize them and how to make them effective
* Change management - once the necessary improvements are identified, how to implement
Benefits
* Reduce hospital costs and improve patient care by identifying and correcting bottlenecks, delays and other patient flow problems
* Learn to independently implement Six-Sigma, Lean thinking, Total Quality Management and additional process improvement methods
* Hands-on learning can be tailored to your organizational needs
Audience
Healthcare Practitioners and Administrators:
* Clinical Staff
* Healthcare Administrators and Executives
* Healthcare Engineers
* Nurses
* Physicians
Biography: David Belson, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He currently teaches graduate level engineering courses at USC in improving healthcare operations. Belson brings over 25 years of Industrial Engineering experience to this Professional Programs short course and has worked with over a dozen hospitals in improving their processes and teaching process improvement methods. Process implemented in over a dozen hospitals utilizing a wide range of methods and research in healthcare operations include surgery scheduling, ER queuing, radiology throughput and other patient flow improvements. Belson has previously held management positions at IBM and Ernst & Young and has extensive experience as an independent consultant.
Host: Professional Programs
More Info: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/ProcessImprovementinHealthCare.htm#Course_DeliveryAudiences: RSVP Only
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
Event Link: http://mapp.usc.edu/professionalprograms/ShortCourses/ProcessImprovementinHealthCare.htm#Course_Delivery
