WVU Libraries Resources for
CSEE Graduate Students
Speaker: Marian Armour-Gemmen
Date: Monday,
Jan. 30, 2016
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West
Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: She will introduce the services and resources available through the WVU Libraries. These library resources may be critical to your graduate research.
Speaker Bio: Marian Armour-Gemmen is the Engineering Research librarian at WVU. She also has been the Patent & Trademark librarian since 2003. In this capacity she assists inventors throughout the state of West Virginia. Previously she worked as the head of the Physical Sciences Library and as an associate in the Government Documents department. She holds an MLIS from the University of South Caroline, an MA from the University of Michigan and a BA from Calvin College.
Computational science and
engineering resources for West Virginia University researchers
Speaker: Nathan
Gregg and Dr. Don McLaughlin
Date: Monday,
Feb 13, 2017
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: This presentation will cover two closely related
topics. The first of these will describe the computational resources
managed by WVU’s Information Technology Services to support computational
science and engineering research at the University. Specific topics that will
be discussed will include the University’s high performance computing systems
and how they may accessed and used by WVU researchers. The session will
also describe the research computing program’s high performance parallel
storage system as well as the dedicated campus science DMZ network known as
REX. There will also be a review of new storage service options that will
be available to the WVU Research Community. The second part of this session
will focus on computational science and engineering resources and services
available through XSEDE. XSEDE is a program sponsored by the National
Science Foundation to provide world class computational resources to
researchers in academia. This portion of the seminar will describe the
resources available through XSEDE and how WVU researchers can take advantage of
them.
Speaker Bio:
Nathan Gregg –
Nathan Gregg is the Manager of ITS' Research Computing Department. He has
been working for WVU since 2013 and he is responsible for the daily operations
of WVU's Research Computing Systems. Research Computing maintains WVU's
two centrally shared high-performance computing systems Mountaineer and Spruce
Knob. Along with Don, Nathan is also an XSEDE Campus Champion.
Don McLaughlin –
Don McLaughlin is a part-time instructor in the Lane Department of Computer
Science and Electrical Engineering. He spent several years working in the
WVU Research Office where he managed high performance computing resources
offered by the University. He also has served as an XSEDE Campus Champion
since 2013. Don retired from WVU in 2015 but continues to teach an
occasional course in the Lane Department. He also continues in his role
as an XSEDE Campus Champion.
How to Get Published: An
Inside View of the IEEE Peer-Review Process
Speaker: Dr. Matt Valenti
Date: Monday,
Feb. 20, 2016
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West
Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract:
Publishing
in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings is an essential part of
the research process. But to get published, you need to first understand
the process. This talk gives a detailed, behind the scenes look at
how papers are handled by typical journals and conferences. Specific case
studies are provided, focusing on the flow from submission to acceptance (or
rejection) and the Internet-based tools used to manage this flow. The
first example is a journal — IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications —
which uses Manuscript Central to handle reviews. The second example is a
conference — IEEE MILCOM — which uses the EDAS system. By
understanding the process, you will be able to avoid common pitfalls and
maximize the chances for acceptance.
Speaker Bio: When not teaching classes at West Virginia University, Matthew Valenti serves the IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc) in a variety of ways. He is the Chair of the Executive Editorial Committee for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. In this capacity, he serves directly under the Editor-in-Chief and oversees the pre-screening of 2,000 submitted papers per year. He has previously been an editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, and IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. He is the Technical Program Chair for the 2017 IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM-2017) and has served in various senior leadership roles and on the steering committee for MILCOM. He is on the technical steering committee for IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) and IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) and has served in various leadership roles for these conferences, including Technical Program Vice Chair for GLOBECOM-2013. In collaboration with his students, he has published 132 papers in peer-reviewed conferences and journals.
NCFTA: Overcoming the Challenges of Information Sharing
Speaker: Dr.
Steve Mancini
Date: Tuesday,
March 14, 2017
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: AER135
Advanced Engineering Research Building (AERB)
West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: This presentation will provide and overview of the
National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA). The NCFTA is a
non-profit organization that has been bringing industry, government and
academia together since 2002 to solve the problem and overcome the challenges
of sharing information in an effort to combat crime. This seminar will
discuss some of the challenges we see at the NCFTA and how we overcame them to
achieve success.
Speaker Bio:
In his final role with DHS, he was again promoted into the role of Unit Chief
for the Operational Planning, Exercise, and Training Branch of the newly
aligned NCCIC. In this role, he developed the first interagency
cyber plan which captured cyber defense and mitigation capabilities from across
the federal government and private sector. This effort still helps guide
the NCCIC, industry partners and other federal agencies in how to respond to
cyber incidents.
Steve is also a 20 year veteran of the Navy and
Air Force. Prior to retiring from the Air Force, he served as a military
faculty member at the National Defense University's iCollege where he taught
various cybersecurity courses to information security leaders from across the
federal government as well as international partners; all while managing an
information assurance lab, where he worked with various technologies such as
biometrics, Voice over IP (VoIP), wireless vulnerabilities, industrial control
systems and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, to
include providing hands-on demonstrations for students.
National Science Foundation
Spectrum Priorities and University Opportunities
Speaker: Dr.
Glen Langston
Date: Monday,
March 20, 2017
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: Dr. Glen Langston, a program officer at the National
Science Foundation (NSF), will summarize the Foundation’s priorities for
Scientific use of the Radio Spectrum. He will also outline opportunities
for research support in the area of radio frequency communications at the NSF.
The process of coordinating use of the radio spectrum is technically and
bureaucratically challenging. The latest technologies have provided a great
number of opportunities for innovative uses of the radio spectrum.
Successful entrepreneurs must also understand the process of gaining
access to the spectrum.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Glen Langston is an Astronomer and helped to
discover the first Gravitational Lenses using radio astronomical techniques. He
holds degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. At the NSF, he is responsible for coordinating
grant allocations for research in all areas of Galactic Astronomy.
Langston is an NSF representative to the Department of Commerce’s
Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC). The IRAC negotiates use
of the radio spectrum between governmental agencies and coordinates private use
of the spectrum with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He is a
delegate for NSF’s Electromagnetic Management Unit to the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the U.S. State Department representative for
the scientific use of the radio spectrum. Langston was formerly an
Adjunct Professor in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical
Engineering at West Virginia University, and was a Scientist at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Green Bank, WV.
Autonomous Sample Return
Robot
Speaker: Dr.
Yu Gu
Date: Monday,
April 3, 2017
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: Robotic sample collection and return in a large
natural environment presents many technical challenges. During this talk, the
speaker will present the design of Cataglyphis, an autonomous robot that
successfully completed NASA Sample Return Robot (SRR) Centennial Challenge.
Cataglyphis autonomously traversed 2,692m and returned five samples within
2-hrs during the 2016 final SRR challenge. The speaker will discuss the
motivations behind various design choices, the challenges encountered, the
mistakes made, various failure modes, lessons learned, and future research
directions. He will also share stories from participating in the NASA
Centennial Challenge.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Yu Gu is currently an Assistant Professor at
West Virginia University. He is interested in bio-inspired robot perception,
control, and interaction strategies, with applications to autonomous sample return,
formation flight, cooperative navigation, and robotic pollination. Dr. Gu has
authored over 80 technical papers and managed 11 external funded projects as PI
or as a Co-PI. He is serving as the editor for the AIAA Roadmap for Intelligent
Systems in Aerospace, 2nd Edition. Dr. Gu has designed more than a dozen UAVs
and ground robots and have managed numerous indoor and outdoor experiments. He
was the leader for WVU Team Mountaineers that won the NASA Sample Return Robot
Centennial Challenge in 2014 (Level-1 challenge), 2015 (Level-2 challenge with
a $100,000 prize), and 2016 (Final challenge with a $750,000 prize).
Scalable Strategies for
Image Analysis in Neuroscience
Speaker: Dr.
Walter Scheirer
Date: Monday,
April 24, 2017
Time: 5:00
PM – 6:00 PM
Place: G102
Engineering Sciences Building (ESB)
West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV
Abstract: Mapping the synaptic connectivity of neurons in
the brain provides diagrams that frame the structural and computational
constraints of neuronal circuits. In combination with physiology, these circuit
maps unravel the underlying mechanisms of neuronal computations, and hold much
promise for the field artificial intelligence, where new classes of algorithms
that mimic the sensory processing and reasoning abilities of biological systems
may be discovered. At present, only electron microscopy provides sufficient
resolution to visualize the detailed intricacy of neuronal circuits. The
current strategy is to generate a large set of serial sections containing all
circuit elements and reconstruct the circuit by comprehensive automatic
segmentation – a process known as dense reconstruction. Imaging large data
sets, however, is presently very time consuming and reconstruction remains
prohibitively slow and expensive. As an alternative, this talk introduces an
Assisted Reconstruction Technique for Electron Microscopic Interrogation of
Structure (ARTEMIS) that circumvents these limitations.
By enhancing the signal of genetically encoded markers
expressed in defined circuit elements and quickly mapping them in large volumes
of brain tissue, it enables sparse reconstructions of genetically defined
circuit motifs. These motifs can be further used as road maps for targeted
imaging of tissue subsets at high resolution, thus restricting imaging and
segmentation time by enabling directed unsupervised reconstructions. As a proof
of principle, this technique has been used to automatically reconstruct and
visualize interneurons of different mouse retinas. This approach is not restricted
to the retina and can be used to track long-range projections anywhere in the
brain, e.g., from the retina to visual recipient layers located several
millimeters away. Further, the same approach for unsupervised image processing
can be applied to a variant of spectral confocal reflectance microscopy,
facilitating the long range tracing of myelinated axons, as well as the
automatic assessment of myelin thickness.
Finally, directions in open set recognition for
machine learning targeting imaging problems in neuroscience will be discussed.
Unknown structures will appear in all imaging modalities as volumes of brain
tissue grow in size. How do we identify unknown data and incorporate it into a
reconstruction model? A new class of supervised learning methods that can
minimize the risk of the unknown and incrementally learn from new data
addresses this. A key enabling algorithmic component is the use of the
statistical Extreme Value Theory, which leads to accurate probabilistic
estimation in various decision-making problems in computer vision
Speaker Bio: Walter J. Scheirer, Ph.D. is an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the
University of Notre Dame. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard
University, with affiliations in the School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences, Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Center for Brain Science,
and the director of research & development at Secures, Inc., an early stage
company producing innovative computer vision-based solutions. He received his
Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and his M.S. and B.A. degrees from Lehigh
University. Dr. Scheirer has extensive experience in the areas of computer
vision, machine learning and image processing. His overarching research
interest is the fundamental problem of recognition, including the
representations and algorithms supporting solutions to it.