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Events for the 3rd week of December
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PhD Thesis Defense - Tiantian Feng
Mon, Dec 11, 2023 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Thesis Defense - Tiantian Feng
Committee Members: Professor Shrikanth Narayanan, Professor Aiichiro Nakano, Professor Kristina Lerman, and Professor Morteza Dehghani (external)
Title: Foundation Model Assisted Privacy-Enhancing Computing in Human-centered Machine Intelligence
Abstract: Human-centered machine intelligence has revolutionized many leading domains, ranging from transportation and healthcare to education and defense, profoundly changing how people live, work, and interact with each other. These systems utilize state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) algorithms to achieve a deeper understanding of human conditions, such as state, trait, and interactions, which provide possibilities to create technologies that increasingly support and enhance human experiences. Despite promises human-centric ML systems deliver, they create critical risks in potentially leaking sensitive information that people might want to keep private. The sensitive information can be individual attributes (e.g., age, gender), states (e.g., health, emotions), or biometric fingerprints. In this thesis, I explore privacy-enhancing computation associated with human-centered ML. My thesis investigates established approaches to preserve privacy in diverse human-centered applications. However, we identify that these approaches are frequently ineffective when encountering low-resource data due to privacy restrictions in sensing, storing, and using such data. Concurrently, the foundation model is a rapidly evolving research field, leading to the success of modern generative AI capable of creating realistic and high-fidelity digital content. These advances in foundation models and generative AI also present opportunities for privacy-enhancing computing as high-quality generated content can serve as training data. This leads us to explore using the foundation model to generate training data to assist low-resource training encountered with sensitive data in human-centered applications. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the potential of the foundation model in assisting low-resource training caused by privacy constraints in obtaining human-centered signals.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Events
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Computer Science General Faculty Meeting
Wed, Dec 13, 2023 @ 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Receptions & Special Events
Bi-Weekly regular faculty meeting for invited full-time Computer Science faculty only. Event details emailed directly to attendees.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Invited Faculty Only
Contact: Assistant to CS Chair
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PhD Thesis Defense - Kexuan Sun
Wed, Dec 13, 2023 @ 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Committee members:
Prof. Jay Pujara
Prof. Aiichiro Nakano
Prof. Gerard Hoberg
Title: Advances in Understanding and Leveraging structured data for knowledge-intensive tasks
Abstract: Over the past few decades, the Web has evolved into an essential information hub. Among the vast repository of information, structured data, including well-organized tables, charts, and knowledge graphs, distinguishes itself as a valuable source of knowledge. This dissertation investigates techniques for understanding and harnessing such structured data to enhance knowledge-intensive applications. The first part of the dissertation focuses on tabular data. I first investigate approaches for understanding complex table structures by introducing an automated hybrid probabilistic system that identifies sub-structures within tables and their relationships, offering potential benefits for downstream tasks like data integration. I then explore approaches for selecting valuable information to answer questions relying heavily on financial tables. We approach this task by leveraging case-based reasoning, adapting solutions from existing questions to answer new questions effectively. The second part of the dissertation delves into the realm of KGs. I begin by investigating scientific KGs construction and empirically explore techniques that combine inherent graph structures and external entity-associated information. Additionally, I introduce a novel approach for accurately selecting important information from KGs to answer general-domain questions. These advances are necessary to fully exploit multi-source integrated systems that leverage unstructured and structured information together for knowledge delivery.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Events
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Thesis Proposal (Zihao He)
Wed, Dec 13, 2023 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
Committee members:
Kristina Lerman (Chair)
Emilio Ferrara
Jonathan May
Fred Morstatter
Marlon Twyman
Title: Exploring Polarization and Ideological Difference of Online Communities Through Language Models
Abstract: The proliferation of diverse information sources and social platform interactions has led to increased ideological polarization, presenting unique challenges in understanding and quantifying these divides. This thesis tackles the nuanced task of analyzing ideological polarization of online communities through language models. First, I extract contextualized topic embeddings from a pretrained language model, focusing on identifying polarized topics within various information sources. Next, I use a generative language model to probe into the ideological dimensions within social media discourse, specifically examining Twitter conversations around key political figures; this approach uncovers the complexities within user interactions and the formation of opinion clusters. Finally, I investigate the alignment between the affective responses of large language models and human ideologies.Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 131A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Events
Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98773410609?pwd=SXQzekVMZjZ6dVhSdWJCRGlrVlFFZz09
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The Hub's Winter Break Writing Retreat for Ph.D. StudentsThu, Dec 14, 2023 @ 11:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Join us at the Hub for concentrated writing time over winter break! Quiet space, lunch, and optional instructional support provided! RSVP by 12/8 at the Hub's site here: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/writing-retreat
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222
Audiences: Ph.D. Students with RSVP
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/writing-retreat
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International Conference on Holodecks
Fri, Dec 15, 2023
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Receptions & Special Events
Emerging immersive reality and interactive technology are realizing the vision of a holodeck. Holodecks will transform the future of human communication and perception, and how we interact with information and data. The International Conference on Holodecks is a forum for researchers, practitioners, vendors, application developers, and users of immersive and interactive technology for a realistic 2D and 3D simulation of a real or imaginary setting. Its objective is to enable its participants to exchange ideas and form collaborations to expedite the development of holodecks. We seek to develop a community that revolutionizes how we work, learn, play and entertain, receive medical care, and socialize.The conference will be held on December 15 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm (with a social hour to follow) at the Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) at UPC.
Registration is required, and space is limited. Visit https://www.holodecks.quest/agenda to view the technical program.Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Shahram Ghandeharizadeh
Event Link: https://www.holodecks.quest/
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The Hub's Winter Break Writing Retreat for Ph.D. Students
Fri, Dec 15, 2023 @ 11:00 AM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Join us at the Hub for concentrated writing time over winter break! Quiet space, lunch, and optional instructional support provided! RSVP by 12/8 at the Hub's site here: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/writing-retreat
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 222
Audiences: Ph.D. Students with RSVP
Contact: Helen Choi
Event Link: https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/eishub/writing-retreat
