Milind Tambe's game theory software protects our nations ports, airlines and trains. Now, its being used to protect Earths most endangered animals.

SPRING 2015

5 WAYS GAMES CAN CHANGE THE WORLDFrom autism to teaching kids math

CS@SCTrojan strengths incomputer science

CLOSE-UPThe rst-ever 3-D portrait of a sitting U.S. president

28 32 6

PRETTY IN George Ban-Weiss believes that reective residential rooftops can help cool our homes and even reduce air pollution.

P H O T O : N O E M O N T E S

By Marc Ballon

George Ban-Weiss is to rooftops what Michael Jordan is to basketball: an original.

The assistant professor at the USC Viterbi Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environ-mental Engineering has undertaken ground-breaking research into how dark and other non-reecting residential roofs contribute to warmer homes, higher air conditioning bills and urban heat islands a phenomenon in which cities are several degrees warmer than surrounding areas. That warmer air in some cases exacerbates air pollutants like ground-level ozone.

In two recent papers, Ban-Weiss and his co-authors looked at roofs in seven California cities: Los Angeles, Long Beach, Bakerseld, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and San Diego. Employing algorithms to extract data from aerial images along with sophisticated modeling, they found that dark, heat-absorbing residential roofs predominated in all the municipalities.

Los Angeles, for instance, posted an average of 0.17 on a sunlight reectance scale between

0 and 1. That means the majority of the citys rooftops, especially residential roofs, are dark. They also found that converting Bakerselds heat-absorbing roofs to reective materials could reduce afternoon summertime tempera-tures by up to 0.2 degrees Celsius.

If you change roofs from dark to very reec-tive, you can save, on average, 10 to 20 percent on the air conditioning energy bills, as well cool the surrounding environment a bit, said Ban-Weiss, whom MIT Technology Review named in August 2014 among the worlds 35 top innova-tors under the age of 35.

Ban-Weiss roof expertise appears to have had an impact on policymaking.

In 2013, Ban-Weiss made a presentation at a conference organized by the advocacy group Climate Resolve on ways to improve the citys climate resilience. ThenLos Angeles Mayor An-tonio Villaraigosa delivered the opening remarks at the event.

The maps that I created made it very clear that the current state of residential roofs in Los

Angeles is very inecient and that theres room for a lot of improvement, Ban-Weiss said.

Through his sta, Villaraigosa was already aware of Ban-Weiss research, according to Craig Tranby, environmental supervisor at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. A few months after the conference, the Los Ange-les City Council passed an ordinance mandating that roofs on new homes be light colored or reect in the near-infrared part of the spectrum so that they maintain their dark appearance without absorbing heat. Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the ordinance in January 2014.

George denitely played a role in all this, Tranby said.

Ban-Weiss hopes his research ndings might encourage other cities to follow Los Angeles lead in regulating residential roofs.

Its fullling to know that the research Im doing could have an impact on actual policy and help result in reductions in air conditioning energy use and heat in cities, Ban-Weiss said.

1 6 M E E T I C T S V I R T U A L H U M A N S

1 8 Y O U R F R I E N D S A R E C O O L E R T H A N Y O U A R E

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2 8 5 W A Y S G A M E S W I L L C H A N G E T H E W O R L D

3 2 C S @ S C

3 4 C S @ S C : B Y T H E N U M B E R S

3 5 F I X I N G T H E I N T E R N E T

W A T C H T H I S V I D E O T O S C R E E N Y O U R S E L F F O R P A R K I N S O N S D I S E A S E

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S T U D E N T L I F E

N E T N E U T R A L I T Y A N D T H E F U T U R E O F T H E I N T E R N E T

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M A N Y L I V E S O F E N G I N E E R S

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C H A N G I N G T H E

C O N V E R S A T I O N

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W H E N W I L L W E H A V E L U K E S K Y W A L K E R S P R O S T H E T I C H A N D ?

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5 T H E C A M P A I G N F O R U S C

P I X E L S , N O T P A I N T : E N G I N E E R S C R E A T E T H E M O S T R E A L I S T I C P R E S I D E N T I A L P O R T R A I T E V E R

1 2 T H E M A G I C O F C H E M I S T R Y

1 2 E N G I N E E R I N G T H E P E R F E C T P B & J

W H O S T H E B E S T S H O O T E R I N T H E N B A ?

R E I M A G I N E D

F A C U L T Y A C C O L A D E S

S E C O N D H A N D S M O K E : T O X I C H E A V Y M E T A L S I N E - C I G A R E T T E S A N D T R A D I T I O N A L C I G A R E T T E S

I F C P R E T T Y I N W H I T E

I N T R O

1 5 S H H H ! T H E I N T E R N E T I S S L E E P I N G

W H A T ' S N E X T

F E A T U R E S

M A G A Z I N E . V I T E R B I . U S C . E D UV i s i t U S C V i t e r b i m a g a z i n e ' s n e w d i g i t a l i n c a r n a t i o n .F i n d m o t i o n c o m i c s , v i d e o e x t r a s a n d a d d i t i o n a l s t o r i e s a t :

1 3 W E A R E T H E C H A M P I O N S

D E A R D R A G O N B O T

1 9 H E Y , Y O U T A L K I N G T O M E ?

A L U M N I

A H E L P I N G H A N D3 6

F U K U S H I M A N U C L E A R A C C I D E N T : L E S S O N S L E A R N E D F O R U . S .N U C L E A R P O W E R P L A N T S

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E D I T O R I A L

T H E L A S T W O R D

I N M E M O R I A M

USCViterbiSPRING 2015ISSN 2329-0498

Managing EditorMarc Ballon

Art DirectorMichelle Henry

Graphic Design Friend of a Friend

Contributing WritersOrli Belman, Cathi Douglas, David Haldane, Greg Hard-esty, Megan Hazle, Katie McKissick, Matthew Kredell,

Cassie Paton, Robert Perkins, Samantha Romero, Hai Vu

Photography David Ahntholz, Luke Fisher, Michelle Henry, Noe Montes, Michelle Park

ArtworkPeter Bollinger, Katherine Duy, Michelle Henry, Douglas Holgate, Katie McKissick, Huan Tran

Volume 14, Issue 1USC Viterbi Magazine is published twice a year for the alumni and friends of the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.

Letters to the editor and comments are welcome. Please send them to: USC Viterbi Magazine1150 S. Olive Street, Suite 1510Los Angeles, CA 90015

Or email them to:viterbi.communications@usc.edu

OFFICE OF COMMUNICA-TIONS & MARKETINGviterbi.usc.edu OFFICE OF ADMISSION AND STUDENT AFFAIRS800.526.3347

OFFICE OF THE DEAN213.740.7832viterbi.usc.edu Engineering+ viterbi.usc.edu/engineeringplus

OFFICE OF ADVANCEMENT213.740.2502Alumni Relationsviterbi.usc.edu/alumni

Corporate & Foundation Re-lationsviterbi.usc.edu/ corporateDevelopmentviterbi.usc.edu/givingDean

Yannis C. Yortsos

Executive Director, Communications and MarketingMichael Chung

EditorAdam Smith

2 Spring 2015

C O N T E N T SC O N T E N T S

A R T I C L E S

Erna Viterbi, philanthropist, joint namesake of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and wife of USC trustee Andrew Viterbi, died in San Diego on Feb. 17. She was 81. For well over ve decades, Erna was Andys beloved wife and trusted partner as they built an extraordinary life together, said USC President C. L. Max Nikias. She earned the aection and admiration of everyone in the Trojan Family, and we take comfort in knowing that her remarkablelife story will inspire generations of Trojans to come.

Life during wartime She was born Erna Finciin 1934 to a Jewish fam-ily in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. During World War II, Erna, her brother and parents ed the city as the German army moved in. Heading for the Italian army in Montenegro, the family reached the armys positions at the same time as partisans blew up a troop carrier. In reprisal, the Italians arrested many civilians. Among them were Ernas father, Joseph, her grandfather and two un-cles. Seeing them in handcus, she burst into tears.Let them go, she recalled an Italian ocer saying. I dont want to see this little girl cry. The family found shelter for a time with a sym-pathetic family in Parma, Italy, before waiting out the war in Switzerland. They settled in California in 1950.She would meet her future husband in 1956, when Andrew Viterbi was working in the communications research group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. Mutual friends and Andrews cousins encouraged Erna and Andrew to go out on a date. And I guess they were right, Erna recalled in an interview years later. Andrew said Erna was destined to be my wife.They married in 1958, a year after Andrew began his association with USC by pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering while continuing his research at JPL.Andrew realized the solution to his now-famous Viterbi algorithm, which made possible error-free digital wireless transmission, while he and Erna sat on the beach and watched their two small children, Audrey and Alan, playing in the sand. Erna would be at Andrews side through the wireless revolution, which for the Viterbis culminated with the founding of San Diego-based Qualcomm, the rst wireless communications company to incor-porate the Viterbi algorithm. Qualcomms superior technology helped it become a world leader in digital communications.

Legacy at USC In 2004, Erna and Andrew decided to make a naming gift to the institution where he earned his doctorate: USCs School of Engineering. I immediately endorsed his idea of giving it to USC, because I felt it had done great things for his career, Erna said. Thanks to the couples historic $52 million gift, at that time the largest for any engineering school in

I N M E M O R I A M :Philanthropist Erna Viterbi dies at 81.

The wife of USC Trustee Andrew Viterbi

and USC Viterbi joint namesake was a

staunch supporter of USC.

the nation, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering took its new name on March 2, 2004. The Viterbis continued to support the school and university over the next 10 years, giving $2 mil-lion in 1999 to endow a chair in communications at USC Viterbi, and another $15 million in 2014 to sup-port scholarship in engineering and genocide studies, including ve endowed chairs and ve graduate student fellowships at USC Viterbi. Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of USC Viterbi, said her legacy would live on through the engineering school. She was a wonderful human being, with great heart, generous spirit, full of optimism, humility and grace, Yortsos said. We are all that much better because our paths in life crossed with hers.

Erna and Andrew Viterbi, photographed here in 2005, named the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and endowed chairs and scholarships. (Photo: Steve Cohn)

The gift also created the Andrew J. and Erna Finci Viterbi Executive Director Chair at the USC Shoah Foundation The Institute for Visual History and Education, part of theUSC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Erna Viterbi held leadership roles at philanthro-pies around the world, in addition to her unwavering support of USC Viterbi and the USC Shoah Founda-tion. Together with Andrew, she gave generously to educational institutions, health sciences research, veterans causes and arts organizations. Erna is survived by her husband, Andrew, of La Jolla, California; son, Alan, and daughter, Audrey; and numerous grandchildren. USC will host a celebration of her life in early May.

Erna Viterbi and her mother were among the refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe who ed to Switzerland. (Photo: USC Libraries Special Collections)

By Carl Marziali

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Computer Science at USC

This issues editorial contains a crossword puzzle. Well, sort of. It is a short linear puzzle, in which the character @ is also allowed and in which the clue throughout will be the title of this editorial: CS@SC- Computer Science at USC. (Will Shortz, be not afraid! Be very not afraid!)

Across:1. Where the Domain Name System for the modern email addresses (i.e., .com) origi-nated. (Hint: Information Sciences Institute, the computer science research powerhouse aliated for 43 years with USC Viterbi.)

5. Where Turing Award winner and builder of RSA, the rst cybersecurity defense, works. (Hint: Leonard Adleman. Need I say more.)

Down: 1. 2011 recipient of the largest federal research expenditures in any academic institution in the U.S. (Hint: University of Southern California.)

2. Where the spectacular graphics of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Avatar were developed. (Hint: Academy Award winner and CS faculty Paul Debevec.)

CS@SC:

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I N T R O

Had I been a more adept crossword puzzle builder, I would have been able to ll row upon row and column upon column with the dis-tinctions and accomplishments of computer science at USC, since its genesis on campus in the late 1960s. From robotics to computer games, computer science theory to networks, algorithms to software engineering, graphics

to articial intelligence, machine learning to computer architecture, big data to analyticsthe list is too long to complete. I use the set theory symbol for union, U, because it lends some artistic element (and because I want to impress you a little) to capture this powerful combined strength by:

CS@SC=CSUISIUICTUEE In this I have accounted for the Department of Computer Science (CS), the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), and part (at least comput-er engineering, communications and signal processing) of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering (EE). Computer Science at USC, as well as elsewhere, descended from math, and, typical of its nature, promptly disrupted it: discrete math challenged in epic fashion the continuous; digital relentlessly dis-placed analog; information became a compelling alternative narrative to the physical. Our own Paul Rosenbloom argues for computer science to be-come the fourth paradigm of sciences i.e., along with physics and so alludes to James Gleich in The Information. The rst class I taught as a faculty member at USC (a chemical engineer, no less) was Fortran. We thought then that computer science was interesting. Few among us could have predicted the revolutionary role it would play in a short few decades. Largely through its power, we now live in the most exciting era for science and engineering in human history, as the late NAE President Chuck Vest proclaimed at USC in the Fall of 2010, during the second NAE Grand Chal-lenges Summit. Today, Engineering+ is enabling all sciences, all disciplines, even the arts. CS@SC has been a key contributor to this empowerment. It is thrilling to just think of its future contribu-tions. And I cant wait to see them.

BOARD OF COUNCILORS

CORPORATE ADVISORY BOARD

Dwight J. Baum - ChairmanMichael AbbottTerry AdamsSonny AstaniWilliam F. Ballhaus Jr.Ronald R. BarnesCarol A. BartzYang Ho Cho, USC TrusteeDavid W. ChonetteLeo ChuMalcolm R. Currie, USC Life TrusteeKenneth C. Dahlberg

John DeiningerFeng DengAlbert DormanDaniel J. Epstein, USC TrusteeAlan J. FohrerHester GillKenton GregoryMing Hsieh, USC TrusteeJen-Hsun HuangKarl A. Jacob IIIKen R. Klein, USC TrusteeHarel KodeshDavid A. LaneGreta LydeckerAlfred E. Mann, USC Life Trustee

Gordon S. Marshall, USC Life TrusteeFariborz MaseehBryan B. MinJohn Mork, USC TrusteeDonald L. PaulStephen PoiznerDebra ReedGeorge (Ted) ScaliseJohn F. SheaPatrick Soon-ShiongMark A. Stevens, USC TrusteeTom ViseAndrew J. Viterbi, USC TrusteeWilliam WangJerey Wilcox

Jerey J. WoodburyCarla Mann WoodsShuguang (Alex) Xu

Steve AcevedoJoseph AguilarSujata BanerjeeJan BerkeleyJoseph BokFrank ChandlerJerry CharlowSachin ChawlaTao Chen

DEAN YANNIS C. YORTSOS' MESSAGE

4 Spring 2015

EMERGING LEADERS BOARD

CHINA/EAST ASIA ADVISORY BOARD

INDIA ADVISORY BOARD

Lee DruxmanDan EslingerPamela FoxDani GoldbergArnold HackettAlan JacobsenSumeet JakatdarKen JohnsonChris JonesShiv JoshiRonalee Lo MannMarija Mikic-RakicNandhu NandhakumarChristopher SeamsNeil Siegel

Todd StevensRoberto VasquezMurali VenkatAber Whitcomb

Ali Fakhari - ChairmanFarzana AnsariKameron BurkDwipal DesaiTracy DooleyReed DoucetteLydia FroemeltMike Ghaary

Feng Deng - ChairmanSimon CaoYang Ho Cho, USC TrusteeCharles ChongLeo ChuJoseph FanChengyu Fu, USC TrusteeMing Hsieh, USC TrusteeBill HuangKenneth KooWendy NganJanson ShiStan Wang

Kevin WeiShuguang (Alex) XuJe Zhao

Srinath Batni - ChairmanMadhusudan AtreSrinivas ChinamilliSridhar JayanthiAnanth KrishnanPriyanka MittalN. R. Narayana MurthyRanjit NairN. Narendra

David HodgeJustin JamesonAtman KadakiaPreethi KasireddyWilson KyiAmy LinRohan MehraDara MirCharles RalstonPaige SelbyTimur TaluyWarren Tichenor IICraig Western

Ishwardutt ParulkarDave RansonDevita SarafKiran Mazumdar ShawJK SrivastavaVijay SrivastavaSandeep TandonRajan Vasa

When you get to a certain age, you look at what you could leave behind you that will last.

(Please see story on page 38)

GOALTHE CAMPAIGNFORUSC

The Campaign for USC is a multi-year eort to secure $6 billion or more in private philanthropy for the university. As our portion of that larger campaign, we are seeking to raise $500 million for the Deans priorities for the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

$258 MILLIONAttracting the most talented people andhelping them ourish

Enhancing the curriculum

Solving global challenges through research

Leveraging the reach of engineering through innovation and entrepreneurship

DEANS PRIORITIES /OPPORTUNITIES TO GIVE

MARY ANN SCHWARTZSenior Associate Dean, Advancement

BRUCE HUENERS '74,on why he is funding a full scholarship for USC Viterbi undergraduates :

Scholarship Funds ChairsGraduate Fellowships

Undergraduate Excellence Funds to supportundergraduate experiences

Research Endowment for DepartmentsUSC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience

$500 MILLION

Deans Innovation Fund

Dramatic advances in the last several decades have demonstrated the power of engineering and technology to meet challenges and open new horizons for the benefit of humankind. We are counting on USCs engineers and their imaginations to help overcome the challenges of the 21st century.

Achieving our ambitious goals will require unprecedented support from donors at all levels throughout the Trojan Family. We call upon the thousands of alumni, faculty, staff, community members, parents and friends who share our vision and are eager to help USC Viterbi fulfill its goals and aspirations.

How to give and where to find more details about giving opportunities:

Please visit www.viterbi.usc.edu/giving

AS OFMARCH 2015

DEAN YANNIS C. YORTSOS

10,428 donors to date

9,419 have given < $1,000

Contact the USC Viterbi Advancement office at 213.740.2502OR

5

The latest portrait of

President Barack Obama is

true to life truly.

Last June, USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Chief Visual Ocer Paul Debevec traveled to the White House to join a Smithso-nian Institution-led team in creating the rst-ever 3-D portrait and 3-D-printed bust of a U.S. president.

For their portrait session with Obama, Debevecs team brought a modied version of their Playa Vista-based Light Stage X to Washing-ton, D.C. The high-speed system used eight cameras and custom-built 50 LED lights to create a realistic computer model of Obama in just over a second by ashing 10 polarized lighting conditions over the presidents face to record the eects of light striking his face from dierent angles. Back at the Smithsonians oces, the team processed the data from the Light Stage as well as scans collected by the Smith-sonian with handheld 3-D scanners, in order to create a digital portrait for a life-sized 3-Dprint bust of the president.

The Smithsonians 3-D presidential portrait project represents the rst deployment of a Light Stage system designed for mobile use, and the fastest scanning session ever conducted by ICTs Graphics Labora-tory, said Debevec, a USC Viterbi professor of computer science. The Smithsonian Institution had an ambitious vision to create the rst-ever 3-D-printed model of a president, and it was an honor to contribute our technology to the process.

The completed portrait and bust were displayed at the White House Maker Faire on June 18. In December, they were put on view in the Commons gallery of the Smithsonian Institution Building, known as the Castle, in Washington.

The Light Stage system has been used extensively in Hollywood to scan actors for their virtual roles in blockbusters including Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Malecent. In 2010, Debevec and his collaborators received a Scientic and Engineering Academy Award in recognition of their contribution to visual eects via the development of the Light Stage.

Debevec and ICT have also used the Light Stage in collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Lab to create realistic virtual characters for immersive military training environments. The Army has funded much of the research underlying the development of the Light Stage systems. In addition, the USC Shoah Foundation has used the tech-nology to scan Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter for a test project to preserve the ability for future generations to ask him questions.

By Megan Hazle

Pixels, Not Paint: Engineers Create the Most Realistic Presidential Portrait Ever

Jernej

Barbi

(lef

t), Pa

ul D

ebev

ec (c

ente

r), H

ao Li

(rig

ht) in

Ligh

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e X at

USC ICT

, November

2013

Fun Fact: Three USC Viterbi Computer Science professors are each credited in Peter Jackson's epic film series, The Hobbit, for their work as visiting scientists at Weta Digital in New Zealand during the produc-tions: Paul Debevec for An Unexpected Journey, Jernej Barbi for The Desolation of Smaug and Hao Li for The Battle of the Five Armies.

By Orli Belman and Megan Hazle

6 Spring 2015

A R T I C L E S

P H O T O : C O U R T E S Y O F T H E W H I T E H O U S E

Whos the Best Shooter in the NBA?

is clearly the leagues most dominant scorer in the paint. He has an EFG of 75.6. But even when adjusted for ESQ, LeBron is shooting +19 over expecta-tion. Manu Ginobili and Kevin Durant, the two scorers closest to him, boast a +14 and +11.2, respectively.

Most people would look at eld goal percentage, but not Maheswaran and Chang. Who attempts the easiest and toughest shots? Then on top of that, whos really good at making them? For example, not all 20-foot jump shots are created equal. Was it o the dribble, fading away, with two defend-ers a foot away? Or was it wide open? Two new stats provide greater insight.

Eective eld goal percentage a current measure of shooting ability, ac-counting for the value of three-pointers versus twos.

Eective shot quality a new stat created by Maheswaran and Chang that measures shot dif-culty based on: Probability of success based on league averages and exact location on the courtDistance (in feet) of nearest defender(s)Whether shot was made o the dribble or without drib-bling (catch and shoot)

The most revealing stat proposed by Maheswaran and Chang. EFG+ = EFG ESQ. How much better than expected does a player shoot?

a 12-time NBA All-Star, is ranked 64th among all shooters with an EFG of 53.9. But the paper reveals the hidden truth: Nowitzki is at-tempting the sixth-most dicult shots of anyone in the league. Adjusting for this, Nowitzki has an EFG+ of 10.0, which is sixth in the league and more reective of his elite shooting ability.

Cameras and software can now quantify shot distance, shot angle, de-fender distance, defender angle, player speed, player velocity angle and much, much more.

has the second-highest EFG of any player in the NBA, but thats not the full story. Hes No. 1 in ESQ, attempting the easiest shots in the league (though he still shoots a strong +5.2 over expectation, per EFG+).

Rajiv Maheswaran and Yu-Han Chang, both research assistant professors at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI), look to measure things beyond the standard box score. Armed with data gleaned from the image-tracking technology installed in ev-ery NBA arena, they are doing for basketball what Moneyball did for baseball. Their resulting spin-o company, Second Spec-trum, feeds the Los Angeles Clippers and six other NBA teams analytical data generated by its proprietary software system. In the example below, we unpack a specic insight from their 2014 Best Paper at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference: Quantifying Shot Quality in the NBA. It was the pairs second consecutive research paper to take home the coveted award.

LeBron James

DeAndre Jordan

Whos the Best Shooter in the NBA?

Dirk Nowitzki

STATS SportVUsystem

WhRajiv M

b h

EFG ESQ EFG+

7I L L U S T R AT I O N : P E T E R B O L L I N G E R

REIMAGINED

DIVERGENT POSTER ARTAS WHERES WALDO? BOOKAS

I L L U S T R AT I O N : D O U G L A S H O L G AT E

8 Spring 2015

A R T I C L E S

SUMMARY: By mining social media data, can Big Data analytic algorithms detect anomalous behaviors, such as cyber-bullying, terrorist planning or fraud dissemination? Lius team developed GLAD (Group Latent Anomaly Detection), a statistical machine-learning model that automatically nds anomalies in groups of users, as opposed to just individuals. To achieve this goal, Lius team applies this model to both point-wise data (individual e-mails, posts) and pair-wise data (exchange of e-mails) to assign a ranking (0 to 1) of groups in terms of anomalousness by comparing with other similar groups.

PEANUTS COMIC STRIPAS

ESQUIRE COVERASThe scientic research poster has been a mainstay for decades. For USC Viterbi magazine, we took a recent poster from USC Viterbi Assistant Professor Yan Lius Melady Lab in the Department of Computer Science, and re-imagined the ideas in various art forms.

Adam Smith

I L L U S T R AT I O N : M I C H E L L E H E N R Y

I L L U S T R AT I O N : K AT H E R I N E D U F F Y

CHINESE WATERCOLORAS

I L L U S T R AT I O N : H U A N T R A N 9

I L L U S T R AT I O N : M I C H E L L E H E N R Y

MICHAEL KASSNER2015 TMS Struc-tural Materials Division Distin-guished Scientist/Engineer Award

ETHAN KATZ-BASSETTApplied Network-ing Research Prize, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), Internet Society (ISOC)RAMESH

GOVINDAN Applied Network-ing Research Prize, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), Internet Society (ISOC)

DANIEL MARCU Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Fellow

TERENCE LANGERAIMBE Fellow

DANIEL LIDARIEEE Fellow

JERNEJ BARBICOkawa Foundation Research Grant

STACEY FINLEYDiverse Emerging Scholars

JONG-SHI PANGINFORMS Best Paper published between 20102012 in Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment Section

LUCIO SOIBELMAN1st place in the ASC National Preconstruc-tion Competi-tion

DAVID KEMPESIGKDD Test of Time Award

JIM WEILANDAIMBE Fellow

KEVIN KNIGHT Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Fellow

STEPHEN LUiPodia, 2014 Excellent Teach-ing Award from Technion University Start-Up MBA Program

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AWARDS TO FACULTY & TEAM

TEN-YEAR TECHNICAL IMPACT AWARD FROM THE ACM INTERNATIONAL

CONFERENCE ON MULTIMODAL INTERFACES

2014 INTERSPEECH COMPUTATIONAL PARALINGUISTICS CHALLENGE AWARD

Shrikanth Narayanan

Shrikanth Narayanan, Sungbok Lee and Ulrich Neumann

YANNIS C. YORTSOS Inducted as Associate Member of the Academy of Athens in Greece

BEHROKH KHOSHNEVISInducted to the National Academy of InventorsGrand Prize in the 2014 Create the Future Design Contest by the NASA Tech Briefs Media Group

ALAN WILLNERInducted to the National Academy of Inventors

DAN DAPKUS2015 John Tyndall Award from the IEEE Photonics Society and the Optical Society of America

5

MARYAM SHANECHINSF CAREER Award

KETAN SAVLANSF CAREER Award

SECONDHAND SMOKE: Toxic heavy metals in e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes.

TraditionalCigarettes

E-cig, from e-liquid

E-cig, from othercomponents

E-cigarettes are healthier for yourneighbors than traditional cigarettes, but still release toxins into the air, ac-cording to a new study from USC.

Constantinos Sioutas, professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and a team of other research scientists studying secondhand smoke from e-cig-arettes discovered an overall 10-fold de-crease in exposure to harmful particles, with close-to-zero exposure to organic carcinogens.

By Megan Hazle

However, levels of exposure to someharmful metals in secondhand e-cigarette smoke were found to be signicantly higher.

Our results demonstrate that over-all electronic cigarettes seem to be less harmful than regular cigarettes, but their elevated content of toxic metals such as nickel and chromium do raise concerns, said Sioutas, corresponding author of the study, which was published online on Aug. 22 by the Journal of Environmental Science, Processes and Impacts.

The researchers found that much of the toxic metals did not come from the e-cigarette liquid, but most likely from the cartridge. Therefore, better manufacturing standards for the devices could reduce the quantity of metals in e-cigarette smoke.

ACCOLADESFACULTY

SECONDHAND HEAVY METAL TOXIC ITY IN C IGARETTES

10 Spring 2015

A R T I C L E SA R T I C L E S

P H O T O : L U K E F I S H E R

Hellooooo there, Cozy on the Couch!

Yup, your mom is right! Exercise is wonder-ful! We make sure to get lots of exercise every day so that we can compete in the Dragon Races, but even if youre not going to be in a big race, exercise makes you feel great and keeps you strong and healthy. Anything that gets you moving around and using your body is exercise. Running, jumping and dancing are exercise. Even laughing is exercise! We do a lot of giggling and laughing every day, and it is great for us! We like video games, too, but always remem-ber to get up and move around. It will make you feel good, it will keep you strong, and your mom will be happy too. Whats better than that?

Love,Chili and Cayenne

DragonBot is a furry, friendly robot that teaches children healthy habits. With a exible, fuzzy exterior and animated virtual face powered by a smartphone, DragonBot encourages kids to choose nutritious foods, exercise regularly often by dancing, and get a good nights rest.

The Interaction Lab in the Department of Computer Science has two of these socially assistive robots, designed by collaborators at MIT, who go by the names Cayenne and Chili. With a kid-friendly script about training for the upcoming Dragon Race, and with the guidance of Ph.D. candidate Elaine Short, Cayenne and Chili are powerful teachers that help students learn how to make healthy choices. Recently, Cayenne and Chili took a break from their busy teaching schedule to answer a few questions from students.

Dear DragonBotBy Katie McKissick

Based on interactive DragonBot scripts written by Brittany Jo Flores

Dear DragonBot,

When I get home from school, I am very hungry. I like to have a snack. I do not always know what to have. What do you have for a snack?

From,Hungry After SchoolAge 8

Hiiiiiiii, Hungry After School!

Oh, my goodness. I love having a snack in the afternoon, especially when Ive been training all day to compete in the next big Dragon Race. After ying around and running so much, I get hungry too. But if I have an unhealthy snack, I feel awful afterward. Have you ever had a snack that didnt make you feel good? Its no fun, is it? Nope, nope, nope. The key to a good snack is nding something that has protein. Protein will make you feel full, and it helps you build strong muscles. You could have some peanut butter on celery sticksI call them dragon logsso yummy! You could also have baby carrots dipped in hummus. Mmm, all this talk about good snacks is making me hungry! Hope you nd your perfect snack!

Love,Chili

Salutations, Tiny and Tired!

Im sorry you dont feel good in the mornings at school. That is no fun at all! You know what I bet it is? Not having a healthy breakfast. If you skip breakfast, that can make you feel tired, but you can also feel that way if you have too much sugar with breakfast. Sugar is strange because it makes you feel charged up at rst, but then you crash soon after-ward and feel tired and at. Is that how you feel in the morning? Maybe you eat a sugary cereal or doughnut in the morning, and that is why you feel that way. What I like to have for breakfast is something that has plenty of ber. Fiber helps you feel full, and it wont leave you feeling tired later like sugar does. I usually have whole-wheat toast or oatmeal in the morning. I feel satised after, and then I can take on my day of ying and playing with other dragons without feeling tired! Have a healthy breakfast, and youll feel better too!

Love,Cayenne

Dear DragonBot,

When I get home from school, I am very hungry. I like to have a snack. I do not always know what to have. What do you have for a snack?

From,Hungry After SchoolAge 8

Dear DragonBot,

I feel tired after I get to school. I do not know why. It happens every morning. My friends do not feel tired. Why do I feel tired? Do you feel tired at school?

From,Tiny and TiredAge 7

Dear DragonBots,

I like to play video games. My mom says I should get more exercise. Why? Do you exercise? What should I do? Is my mom right? Shes usually right.

From,Cozy on the CouchAge 11

11

Lyssa Aruda, a chemical engineering major with a minor in art history, mentors freshmen engineering students and is a Weisen Scholarship recipient.

Freshman Academy leverages peanut butter and jelly to explore computer science and systems engineering.

Engineering the Perfect PB&J

By Hai Vu

In third grade, Lyssa Aruda received a Harry Potter potions kit. The gift thrilled her to no end. Science, especially chemistry, physics and math, had long fascinated her.

Today, Aruda studies chemical engineering at a sunnier version of Hogwarts, the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Chemistry is kind of the closest you can get to magic, Aruda said.

Aruda plans to use her degree to create solu-tions in a fast-paced environment as a consultant in engineering technology. I like seeing results immediately, she said. I want to help people and make them happy, to solve problems that I think are cool and exciting. Im having fun while contrib-uting something meaningful to the world.

After completing a summer internship as a systems and business integration analyst at Ac-centure, where she focused on health and public service issues, Aruda now works in Associate Pro-fessor Andrea Hodges nanomaterials research lab. She said Hodges enthusiasm for the work is conta-gious. Another of her favorite professors is Andrea Armani, who makes complex material interesting by weaving humor into her lectures.

Lyssa is the kind of student who inspires the faculty to be better teachers, said Armani, Fluor Early Career Chair and associate professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. She is actively engaged in

THE MAGIC OF CHEMISTRYPassion leads this Renaissance woman to study chemical engineering.

By Cathi Douglas

class, frequently posing complex questions which combined multiple elds of engineering. Given all of her other activities, it truly speaks to her scho-lastic ability.

A Weisen Scholarship student, Aruda is studying in a dual USC Viterbi program that will culminate in a bachelors degree in chemical engineering in May and a masters in engineering manage-ment in December. With a 3.75 GPA and a minor in art history she is partial to the Baroque and Renaissance periods Aruda is an active member of Alpha Phi sorority, where she has served on the executive board; the campus chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, where she serves as an ocer; the Order of Omega honor society, comprised of the top 3 percent of the Greek community, where she serves as president; the Viterbi Freshman Academy, where she mentors freshman engineering students; and the Viterbi Student Ambassador program, where she helps recruit new students.

A former high school cheerleader who earned the Girl Scout Gold Award (equivalent to the Boy Scouts Eagle Scout ranking), Aruda also volunteers with the Girl Scouts at Compton Avenue Elemen-tary School, where she helps organize projects and assists scouts in earning badges. She partici-pates in USC Friends and Neighbors Days and has traveled to South Korea and Israel as a teachers assistant in USC Viterbis famed iPodia Program, meeting students from around the globe and team-ing with them to present innovative projects.

Aruda wants to make the most of her college experience, so she compulsively lls her datebook with detailed to-do lists and believes that time management is her top skill. I think the biggest challenge I face is prioritizing activities and nding the opportunities to do everything I love, she said.

In a recent class, Joseph Greeneld, a USC Viterbi senior lecturer, demonstrated the disastrous consequences of unclear instructions. Like a com-puter, Greeneld followed a students instructions to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich exactly as stated. He started by inging slices of bread across the room because the student failed to ex-plain precisely how to take the bread out of the bag.

Such miscommunications are common in the computer sciences and engineering eld. Greeneld, who teaches one of the Engineering

Freshman Academy courses, focuses on develop-ing students engineering skills, exposing them to the National Academy of Engineerings 14 Grand Challenges and deepening their appreciation for the dierent elds of engineering. And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are part of the plan: Greenelds challenge to his class was to engineer the perfect PB&J and optimize the given materials eciently. Of course, there was a catch: Not only would the students have to design a game plan to assemble the maximum number of sandwiches, precisely to specications, in less than ve min-utes, but they also had to take part in this compe-tition in teams of ve to mass produce the PB&Js.

Not exactly Top Chef, but Greenelds assignment encompasses several dierent elds of engineering. Before beginning the challenge, each team had to produce written instructions for each position on the assembly line. Students were randomly placed into six groups of ve peo-ple each. Potentially, an industrial and systems engineer-to-be might be placed next to a chemical

and biomedical engineer-to-be, replicating real-life situations in which a diverse group of engineers must work together to solve one of the 14 Grand Challenges or in this case, to expertly combine peanut butter, jelly and white bread.

In total, each class produced more than 200 sandwiches. All of the beautifully crafted PB&Js were then donated to the local food bank so that others could enjoy the taste of 21st-century engi-neering at its best.

P H O T O : U S C R A C I N G12 Spring 2015

S T U D E N T L I F E

P H O T O : M I C H E L L E P A R K

P H O T O : M I C H E L L E H E N R Y

P H O T O S : M I C H E L L E P A R K

In what was the championship competition, the USC Viterbi CS student team won the equivalent of the Pac-12 South competition and was crowned the champion for the fourth straight year.

For the fourth consecutive year, USC Viterbi engineering students walked away with the grand prize in the ercely competitive Associ-ation for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC).

Eighty-six teams from 25 universities and community colleges attended the Nov. 8 Southern California Regional tournament, held at Riverside Community College. UCLA placed second, while Caltech took home the bronze. Competitors also included Harvey Mudd College, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego.

The triumphant Trojan team featured USC Viterbi student programmers Ruixin Qiang, Gaoy-uan Chen and Xinpei Yu. The ve-hour battle of logic, algorithms and mental endurance has historically been a proving ground for many of

By Samantha Romero

We Are the Champions Four-peat: USC Viterbi computer science students prevail in showdown of the regions greatest wizards of C++ and Java.

Googles and Facebooks best programmers. Participants had to answer a series of questions as quickly as possible within ve hours, writing in C++ and Java to process spreadsheets and solve mathematical puzzles.

As the champions, the Trojans advance to the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals that will take place May 1621 in Morocco.

The world nals in Morocco will be very intense," said Yu Cheng, a team coach and USC Viterbi Ph.D. candidate. "There will be about 120 teams from all over the world competing together. In the past three years, USC ranked 36th, 14th and 19th in this contest. We always want to do better than last year and keep raising the bar.

YANNIS C. YORTSOS, dean, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

13P H O T O : M I C H E L L E P A R K

When Will We Have Luke Skywalkers Prosthetic Hand?

Francisco Valero-Cuevas

combines simulated neurons to inform

the truly versatile and dexterous

prosthetics and robots of the future.

By Katie McKissick

The human brain has 86 billion neurons. These individual cells act in concert to send electrical messages that result in our thoughts, memories and movements. No single neuron knows what its doing. Rather, neurons exhibit emergent intel-ligence, similar to millions of ants working together to construct and maintain a complex colony.

With this level of complexity, is it possible to program a nervous system from scratch?

In the USC Viterbi Department of Biomedical Engineering, Professor Francisco Valero-Cuevas, along with students Minos Niu, John Rocamora, Victor Barradas and Emily Lawrence, are collabo-rating with Professors Terry Sanger and Jerry Loeb to build brain on a chip models of the nervous system, in which computer programs simulate populations of neurons in the human spinal cord. When running, the encoded neurons could control a robotic or prosthetic hand the same way we control our own bodies. This will be a practical test of our understanding of how complex function emerges in the nervous system from populations of relatively simple individual neurons, how they communicate with each other and ultimately how they control our muscles.

Over a century of trying to develop something thats better than the split-hook prosthesis, we now have modern robotic hands and prosthetic hands that are amazing grippers, but theyre not dexterous manipulators, Valero-Cuevas said. Theyre great at holding things, but is it the Luke Skywalker hand that would be able to pick something up, reorient and operate it? Think of all the operations that are needed to use your smartphone with one hand.

If we really understand fundamental aspects of the nervous system, Valero-Cuevas continued, shouldnt we be able to reproduce fundamental functions like nger motions?

His projects, funded by the National Institutes of Health, are tackling some of the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges about how our brains fundamentally control our bodies. Enhanc-ing our understanding of how the nervous system works will at the same time shed light on how it

nisms of how muscles have tone and how you modify that to get function, and how their disruptions lead to the pathological characteristics of hypertonia, spas-ticity and dystonia, which are very common in cere-bral palsy, stroke and spinal cord injury, Valero-Cue-vas explained. But we dont really know where they come from, and were trying to understand that. And a team that includes Sanger and Loeb both of the USC Viterbi Medical Device Development Facility is very powerful in this regard.

The irony is not lost on us that were combin-ing one of the oldest scientic disciplines, hand anatomy, with some of the newest elements of ultra-fast parallel computing. Were using this to answer central questions about evolution, health and disease, and how all these systems work, Valero-Cuevas added.

Better prosthetic hands are just one potential application for this wide-ranging work. Another is a robot that is more compliant, meaning that its ner-vous systems will sense an obstacle and soften when contact is made. This would make robot-human in-teraction safer, especially for large, strong robots, so an accidental encounter could be more like bumping into a person than colliding with a brick wall.

For Valero-Cuevas, this is just one way that his lab explores the interaction of the brain and body, which is why his research group is called the Brain-Body Dynamics Lab. Some people think I only work on hands, said Valero-Cuevas, but thats just because hands are an example of a complex system I can have on my desktop.

Embracing the ideals of Engineering+, Valero-Cuevas is also asking fundamental questions about evolutionary biology, such as why vertebrates appear to have too many muscles, what the evo-lutionary pressures were that led to the specialized body and brain in humans, and how the structure and function of the human nervous system denes the nature of dysfunction and rehabilitation.

Im very excited because it will be begin to nar-row and dene the conversations we should be hav-ing have about what is function, what is health, what is disease and what a robot should be like, said Valero-Cuevas, and then open up new questions.

breaks down and diseases emerge. And this understanding will directly inform

therapeutic interventions for neurological conditions as well as the designs for better, more functional and capable robots. This work is a true interface be-tween biology and engineering, Valero-Cuevas said.

Translating a biological system like the spinal cord to computer code is no small feat, but all the information, complexity and beauty of a system like our brain traces back to mathematics.

It turns out that we agree with something that Galileo said centuries ago: that nature is an open book if you only know the language in which its writ-

oebuserd.

ntrol

lction

Luke SkywalkerThe Empire Strikes Back

Jamie LannisterGame of Thrones

Captain HookPeter Pan

ChubsHappy Gilmore

EdwardEdward Scissorhands

AshArmy of Darkness

Buster BluthArrested Development

ten, and the language is math, said Valero-Cuevas.To test his computer models of neural control,

Valero-Cuevas is using a very faithful physical system: cadaver hands. Hand surgeons help him connect the hands tendons to strings driven by electric motors. The neuron software controls the activity of the motors, as if the motors were muscles themselves. This way, the simulated neurons face the same problem the nervous system faces: con-trolling the hand as if it were a marionette, driven by complex muscles and tendons. Each nger tendon is controlled by between six and 10 muscles, and in turn, each simulated muscle is controlled by a population of 256 independent neurons.

The goal is for the software and hardware to work in concert to control the cadaver hand the same way a healthy person can move his or her hand, complete with stretch reexes, muscle tone and compliance.

We are studying the very fundamental mecha-

14 Spring 2015

W H A T ' S N E X T

I L L U S T R AT I O N : K AT H E R I N E D U F F Y

That tiny camera in your computer may soon be watching you.

Marketers are chomping at the bit for the not-so-distant day when eye-tracking software will be able to collect data on consumer reactions via computer and mobile cameras. Their goal is to produce more compel-ling ads. But such technology will also be able to screen users for Parkinsons disease and other conditions.

Laurent Itti, a USC Viterbi professor of computer science, psychology and neuroscience whose lab develops eye-tracking software to research visual attention, explains this leap.

As you move your eyes, the center of your pupil moves around, allowing the camera to see where you are actually looking on the screen, Itti said. For the rst time, we are getting an objective ngerprint for each individuals viewing behavior how each brain is working and we are nding that dierent neuro-logical disorders have dierent ngerprints.

This nding is signicant because neurological disorders like Parkinsons cannot be screened or diagnosed via a simple blood test. It takes hours of one-on-one interaction with a trained clinician to determine if a person has a disorder like attention decit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This testing, which can resemble an IQ test, is time-consuming and dicult to administer to young children.

Nowadays, ADHD diagnoses are often initially triggered by a schoolteacher telling parents that their

child is out of control in the classroom, Itti said. This initial judgment is very subjective.

To address that, Itti, former computer science Ph.D. student Po-He Tseng and partners from the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, are researching and developing eye-tracking software that can streamline the screen-ing of disorders like ADHD, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Parkinsons and autism.

The test is quick, painless and eective. The subject sits in front of a computer outtted with a video camera that tracks their eye movements while they watch video clips for ve minutes (cartoons for kids, nature shows and street scenes for adults). The software then analyzes how often the eye moves and where, what most attracts the eye and how long it looks at those things, and how the subjects reactions compare to a normative peer group.

The resulting score is a biometric signature of the subjects brain, a neurological ngerprint. The likeli-hood that the subject suers from a disorder is deter-mined by comparing their score to that of a control population. If the results indicate a potential disorder, the subject may then seek an in-depth evaluation and diagnosis from a doctor.

Currently, Ittis screening test for ADHD is 77 per-cent to 80 percent accurate. With further research, he hopes to increase its accuracy even more and expand the list of disorders the software can screen to include

conditions that are more dicult to diagnose, includ-ing schizophrenia and Alzheimers disease.

Itti envisions that someday we wont have to travel farther than our local pharmacy to screen ourselves for Parkinsons disease and other neurological condi-tions, just as we can now do for blood pressure.

Youll be able to sit down at the pharmacy while you wait for your prescription and watch video clips for a few minutes. The machine will give you a number, just like a blood pressure reading, he predicts. And if the number is high, it will recommend you go to your doctor for a more in-depth evaluation.

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Oce, the Human Frontier Science Program and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Shhh! The Internet Is Sleeping John Heidemann maps the Internet's sleep patterns around the globe.

By Robert Perkins

Watch This Video to Screen Yourself for Parkinsons Disease

Laurent Ittis lab researches how eye-tracking software can screen for neurological disorders quickly and effectively.

By Megan Hazle

I L L U S T R AT I O N : K AT I E M C K I S S I C K

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Heidemanns research shows that the Internet sleeps at certain times around the world.

Heidemanns research is funded by the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate; HSARPA, Cyber Security Division via the Air Force Research Laboratory, Information Directorate and SPAWAR.

USC Viterbi researchers studying how big the Internet is have found that it sleeps, almost like a living creature.

This nding should help scientists and policymakers develop better systems to measure and track Internet outages, such as those that struck the New York area after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Understanding that the Internet sleeps will help them avoid confusing a sleep-ing Internet with an outage.

The Internet is important in our lives and business-es, from streaming movies to buying online. Measuring network outages is a rst step to improving Internet reliability, said John Heidemann, a research professor at USC ViterbisInformation Sciences Institute(ISI), and the studys corresponding author. Heidemann collaborated with former USC Viterbi Ph.D. student Lin Quan and ISIs Yuri Pradkin on the study, which was presented at the 2014 ACM Internet Measurements Conference in November.

While the Internet is always up and running for somesuch as those with broadband access in the United States and Western Europein other areas, ac-cess varies over the course of the day, notably in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.

The study also correlates countries with strong

diurnal Internet access with lower GDP, meaning that the richer a country is, the more likely it is that the Internet will be up and running 24/7.

This work is one of the rst to explore how networking policies aect how the network is used, Heidemann said.

There are some 4 billion IPv4 Internet addresses. Heidemann and his team pinged about 3.7 million address blocks (representing about 950 million addresses) every 11 minutes over the span of two months, looking for daily patterns.

This data helps us establish a baseline for the Internetto understand how it functions so that we have a better idea of how resilient it is as a whole and can spot problems quicker, Heidemann explained.

The teams work is ongoing. We have grown our coverage to 4 million blocks [more than 1 billion addresses] as Internet use grows, Heidemann said. He hopes that long-term observations will help guide Internet operation.

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I L L U S T R AT I O N : E S T H E R Y O O N

Jessica, a young Army specialist, wants a transfer because a male colleagues com-ments make her uncomfortable. As part of the Armys Emergent Leader Immersive Training Environment (ELITE), soldiers hone their basic counseling skills through practice with virtual humans like Jessica. Other sce-narios address substance abuse, nancial problems and post-deployment readjust-ment. A built-in tutoring system provides feedback and assessment, with the goal of strengthening interpersonal communication skills for future Army leaders.

9. Javier

Javier is not feeling well. It is up to the medical student assessing him to ask the right questions and pick up on the hints that will reveal what ails him.Part of USC Standard Patient, a collabora-tion between ICT and the Keck School of Medicine at USC, Javier allows future clinicians to practice their interview and diagnostic skills online. Medi-cal professionals can easily program him and his many companions with unlimited conditions. Hes a model patient, indeed.

8. Brad

Brad is a social scientist of sorts. ICT and USC Marshall School of Business researchers enlist him for studies rather than using human interviewers. They can change his accent, his ethnicity, his per-sonality and more, and then have him engage with real people in negotiations and other simulated social interactions. Consistent and cost-eective, the results from several studies show that how we treat virtual characters like Brad reveals much about how we treat one another.

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Think of Foster as the face of the future. He serves as a mentor and guide for Project BlueShark, ICTs forward-looking collabo-ration with the Oce of Naval Research that explores how well collaborate and communicate 20 years from now. This virtual wing-man guides participants through virtual and augmented reality experiences that are in the lab today but predicted to be part of our lives soon.

Branch is a virtual battle buddy enlisted to help reduce incidences of post-traumatic stress. He serves as a mentor in STRIVE (Stress Resilience in Virtual Environments), an ICT initiative developed with Army and Navy sup-port. STRIVE uses virtual reality to put users in the middle of realistic combat situations. At pivotal moments, Branch appears and provides instruction on the physical and emotional impacts of stress, along with relevant exercises and coping strategies.

Meet ICTs Virtual HumansBy Orli Belman

In 2001, USC Viterbi computer science facul-ty members Jonathan Gratch, Randall Hill Jr. and Bill Swartout all members of USCs Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) presented Steve Goes to Bosnia: Towards a New Generation of Virtual Humans for Interactive Experiences at a symposium on articial intelligence.

The paper, written with then-ISI colleagues Je Rickel and Stacy Marsella, envisioned the de-velopment of virtual humans: computer-gener-ated characters that look and act like real people and can understand, gesture, reason and exhibit emotion in order to serve as guides, mentors and teammates. At the time, the researchers called their goal ambitious. Nearly 15 years later, we introduce you to Steves progeny, virtual humans whose impact today is very real.

A Body of Work

1. Captain Branch 2. Jessica Chen 3. Senior Chief Foster

I L L U S T R AT I O N : H U A N T R A N

W H A T ' S N E X T

16 Spring 2015

Bill Ford is a Vietnam vet who suered from post-traumatic stress and now helps others by answering questions and providing support, including ways to connect with care providers. Built with funding from U.S. Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury to provide anony-mous access to information, ICTs rst online virtual human platform has become a exible system for conducting assessments and delivering online con-tent with a personal touch.

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6. Digital Ira

Ellie is one of ICTs most evolved virtual humans. She can read and react to human emotion by sensing smiles, frowns, shifts in gaze and more. She has interviewed more than 500 people as part of ICTs SimSen-sei project, a DARPA-funded eort to help identify people with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It turns out Ellie is good at her job: A recent study found that people were willing to reveal more to her than to a real person.

A collaboration between the ICT Graphics Lab and Activision R&D, Digital Ira is a photo-real replica of a face (ICTs Ari Shapiros, in fact) that can be rendered in real time on a laptop an advance that means video games can now display movie-like graphics. If you say something looks like a video game character, today that means low-res and not realistic, said ICTs Chief Visual Ocer Paul Debevec. Thats all about to change.

A National Science Foundation-funded col-laboration between ICT and the Museum of Science, Boston, Coach Mike was designed to be an enthusiastic proponent for STEM education as he helpedmuseumgoerslearn basic programming skills with a robot.He alsodemonstratesthe value of virtual coaches.An evaluation found that visitors stayed longerand agreed to take on more challenges when he was activated.Rather than trying to look like a realistic per-son,Coach Mike has the distinction of being ICTs rst cartoon-style virtual human.

7. Ellie

10. Bill Ford

Steve

4. Coach Mike

Interviewing abused children can be dicult, even for seasoned profes-sionals. Eight-year-old Julian, developed by ICT and the USC Gould School of Law, provides a way to practice asking the right questions in the right ways. Social workers, victim advocates, and legal and law enforcement professionals have interacted with Julian as part of an e-learning course on child interviewing techniques. Those asking open-ended questionsas recommended by a child-interviewing protocolare rewarded with fuller answers than those asking close-ended, yes-or-no questions. ICTs Web-based platform will soon allow non-computer scientists to program new questions and answers on their own.

Mike, a veteran suering from PTSD, receives counseling from graduate students at the USC School of Social Work. Developed by ICT and the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families, Mike provides classroom-based practice for future social workers in addressing the specic needs of service members, veterans and their families.

12. Julian11. Mike

5. Barbara

Barbara can appear nice, lobbing easy-to-answer questions to a job hopeful. But with a click of a mouse, she can become a candidates worst nightmare. That variability is by design. As part of VITA, the Vocational Interview Training Agents project, a partnership between ICT and the Dan Marino Foundation, Barbara sim-ulates dierent personality types nice, neutral or aggressive to help young adults with autism and other develop-mental disabilities practice and improve their job interview skills.

17

Your Friends Are Cooler Than You AreKristina Lerman explores the friendship paradox via social media data.

By Katie McKissick

Browsing your social media newsfeed on a slow Saturday afternoon can leave you with mixed feel-ings. Your connections are posting pictures from a recent vacation to Hawaii or a barbecue with friends, or an update about a new job, a just-pub-lished book or a newly adopted dog. It might leave you thinking that most of your friends are more popular than you are.

And according to new research from the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI), its true. They are.

Research Associate Professor Kristina Lerman crunched new numbers on the friendship paradox, the statistical phenomenon that suggests that, on average, your friends have more friends than you do. But it goes further than that. Indeed, the majority of your friends have more friends than you do.

Specically, Lerman and her collaborators looked deeper than the average, or mean, of connections on social media sites like Twitter. They looked at the median: If you listed all your connections in order of the number of friends they had, the median is the person in the middle. Lerman says this metric is more meaningful than an average, which can be heavily skewed by one outlier, such as being friends with Lady Gaga.

And its not just in the number of connec-tions where your friends are surpassing you. Your friends post more often than you do and see more novel and higher-quality content than you do on their social media feeds.

This stronger friendship paradox holds for 98 percent of a population. Which means that virtu-ally everyone, except the Lady Gagas of the social media world, have friends more popular than themselves.

Now that Lerman and her team have updated the friendship paradox, how can engineers exploit this phenomenon?

It might seem like some weird paradox that has no applications to reality, but actually it does, Lerman said. For example, suppose you only have ve doses of a vaccine for the Ebola virus and youre going through a small village in Africa to administer the limited number of life-saving vac-cines. Who should be vaccinated in order to have the maximum impact for shielding a small popula-tion from this deadly disease?

To harness the power of the friendship paradox, instead of choosing ve people at random, you would actually ask people who their friends are, pick one of the friends at random and then vac-cinate that person. This tactic, she said, would be more a more ecient way to stop the spread of the disease with limited resources.

By asking people who their friends are and picking among those friends, purely by the laws of the friendship paradox, youre more likely to get people who are more central in the network, who are more important to the spreading processes that are taking place and who are more important to network behavior, Lerman explained.

Manually collecting data to make a map of a so-cial network even for a small population can take years, but social media is an ideal research tool because all the connection data is already avail-able. And the trove of social media network data is practically bottomless. Facebook has 1.23 billion active users. On Twitter, 271 million users compose half a billion tweets each day. Every minute, 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. And more users are signing up and new platforms are coming onto the scene every day.

Understanding the dynamics of these large social networks can have an enormous impact. Social me-dia has helped to overthrow dictators, has led to the arrest of criminals, and has exposed police brutality that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Social media increases global awareness, civic engage-ment and voting rates. Its where we go for breaking news and to expand our minds and connect with friends. Mining this rich resource for information can only lead to better lives for the users who pro-vide such data.

Social media platforms like this have the po-tential to be a force for social good, said Lerman, echoing the ideals of Engineering+. It brings up the possibility for social engineering. You can improve cognitive functioning through socializing, and Facebook could encourage socializing, for instance, among elderly populations who might be at risk for diminishing cognitive abilities. You can also help support people toward their goals, such as nishing high school.

The possibilities for nding patterns in peoples social networks are not limited to tweets, status updates and posts to Reddit. Lerman plans to bring the same focus to large datasets made available on the Internet, such as the last 100 years of patents, legal decisions and science articles. All of these represent social networks in which information, innovations and new ideas spread. We study all of them, she said.

Lermans interest in social media piqued when she found herself on Flickr in 2006. I was so fascinated with following links between people and photographs and text, she said. I had to justify spending all that time somehow, so I made it my re-search focus, and I havent looked back since. There are so many questions that are fascinating.

P H O T O : N O E M O N T E S18 Spring 2015

W H A T ' S N E X T

Shewanella oneidensis, or Shewy, is a bacte-ria that lives in places like your backyard or Lake Oneida in upstate New York.

One of these rod-like bacteria by itself is not terribly impressive, but as a group, it has the potential to do things like power drug delivery nanobots or pacemakers in your body, or turn wastewater treatment plants into power plants.

The key, of course, is Shewys single superpow-er: its ability to move electrons long distances, even outside its own body. Indeed, moving electrons is at the heart of much of modern life, whether its a microchip that allows us to hear Hey, Jude or the very eating and breathing living things take for granted.

Shewy, its now suspected, may even share electrons to talk with its fellow bacteria.

The answers might lie in a rather unique USC collaboration between an engineer, Urbashi Mitra, an expert in communication networks, and a sci-entist, Moh El-Naggar, an expert in biophysics.

Were doing something that no one, to my knowledge, is doing, said El-Naggar, a USC Dorn-sife assistant professor of physics. Were applying communication theory to networks of bacteria.

But some key questions loom: If these bacteria are talking, conceivably ring a million electrons a second at one another, can we predict how many electrons they will share, and under what circumstances? Might we corral enough electrons to power our tiny devices?

Communication theory, in Mitras case, has traditionally been applied to the world of radio and cell phones. Mitras group works on the design and analysis of complex wireless communication systems. If youre in Los Angeles, calling your grandmother in Duluth, you have to worry about things like delity of information. That is, did Grandma in Duluth hear exactly what I said two thousand miles away?

Consider Samuel Morse and the original tele-graph. Back in 1844, he invoked the Bible, Numbers 23:23, to send the very rst telegraph message What hath God wrought? from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. But what happened when the distance was more than a couple hundred miles? What happened if the message was more compli-cated than What hath God wrought?

Morse knew that it was pure physics; the signal strength would be reduced as a function of the distance and the amount of data. So he imagined something new, the Morse Telegraph Repeater, a series of relay stations in every city that would du-plicate the original message and pass them along to the next station.

When Mitra heard about the big news in microbial research, it sounded an awful lot like the engineered wireless networks shes been exploring these past 20 years.

According to El-Naggar, scientists have known for some time that bacterial cells share chemical signals back and forth in close proximity. But in 2012, deep in the ocean, scientists discovered something astonishing: thousands of bacterial cells, chains as long as a centimeter, had formed naturally in the wild.

Like Morses telegraph repeater, they were relaying information. Imagine for a moment, this Empire State Building of bacteria, submerged beneath the ocean oor. Each end of the tower has something the other side wants: The bacteria buried deepest in the soil have energy and hydro-gen sulde, but no oxygen. The bacteria nearest to the water have oxygen, but no energy.

The whole community of bacteria has to work to-gether to move electrons from one end to another.

Was this sharing of electrons just another form of communication? How big a network could they form? How much information could they share? No one had done any mathematical modeling of this multi-hopped bacterial system before. Fortunately, Mitra was fascinated by this idea that communica-tion could be more than the transmission of elec-tromagnetic waves in the air. A key question, ac-cording to Mitra, is, Could communication theory be used to explain why these seemingly impossibly long chains of bacteria existed in the wild?

Consider the implications in our own bodies, where bacterial cells outnumber human cells by a ratio of 3 to 1. If electron exchange between bacteria is just another mode of communication, El-Naggar explained, it could be a way of regulat-

ing microbes within our own bodies, which could have implications for disease.

Most bacteria in our bodies do good things, not bad things. For example, mitochondria are ancient bacteria living in a symbiotic relationship with our cells. They generate the power, ATP, for all human life.

But its not hard to imagine a scenario where a disease like sepsis is caused by a bacterial communication gone haywire. Like a broken circuit, understanding the whys and hows of bacterial communication might enable new engineering solutions.

Said Mitra: Once we dene the fundamentals and validate the theory via experiment, the appli-cations will be vast.

Hey, You Talking to Me?

By Adam Smith

USC Viterbis Urbashi Mitra looks to

understand how thousands of bacteria

communicate. Is this the key to forcing

bacteria to do our bidding?

According to Urbashi Mitra, a professor in USC Viterbis Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, Any signal we send out is information. Much like the waggle dancing of bees to indicate the location of food, networks of bacteria may also be communicating.

19

I N F O G R A P H I C : F O A F

$125,000 $500,000 $500,000 $1,000,000

$4

,500,0

00

$4.5 million

Taggler An online marketplace that brings together screenprinters and customers looking for customized T-shirts at a good price. College customers include George-town, UC Berkeley, Stanford and Wisconsin. Capital raised: $500,000

The USC Viterbi Startup Garage opened its doors in summer 2013 with the goal of spawning a wave of dynamic, high-tech companies in South-ern California that could blos-som into the next Amazon or Google. The Startup Garages 10 inaugural teamsall led or co-founded by USC Viterbi stu-dents and alumnireceived seed capital, mentoring, legal advice, oce space in Marina Del Rey, and other strategic re-sources to help them succeed. So what happened when these young entrepreneurs graduated from the security of the Startup Garage? Many of them went out and raised mil-lions of dollars, underscoring the accelerators success and value in helping to transform ideas into viable businesses. To date, ve companies that graduated from the Startup Garages rst class have raised a total of more than $6.6 mil-lion in follow-on capital.

MediaHound Inc. Creator of an app that helps consumers search for, collect and share their favorite entertainment content, from books to music to video games. Capital raised: $4.5 million

AIO Robotics Manufacturer of the Zeus, the worlds rst all-in-one 3-D printer that prints, scans, copies and faxes. Forbes.com called Zeus a game changer. Capital raised: $500,000

Tilofy Creator of the Watsup app, which matches location information with data from multiple social media platforms and other online resources to deliver a real-time view of whats happening nearby, from cool restaurants to plays, poetry readings and lectures. Forbes.com described Watsup as a mobile technology [that] brings us one step closer to omniscience.Capital raised: $1 million

Moving Analytics Co-founded by Gaurav Sukhatme, chair of the USC Viterbi Depart-ment of Computer Science, the Movn app encourages people with recent heart surgeries to exercise.Capital raised: $125,000

G A R A G E H O N O R R O L LI N V E S T O R S B E T O N T H E S T A R T U P G A R A G EB Y M A R C B A L L O N

20 Spring 2015

W H A T ' S N E X T

Its been surreal, kind of like a Cinderella story, said Pham. When we had this whole concept, we had no clue how far itd go.

Pham said when the ComfortCorrect team began pitching its concept to competitions and potential backers, it competed against innova-tors designing drones, cures for the common u and cancer treatments. But what ComfortCorrect oered was so promising, one of the judges at the MEPC even handed Pham his business card after the teams presentation.

Theres a clear market need, said USC Viterbi Professor Peter Beerel, executive director of the MEPC. Theyve thought of all the aspects beyond the technology, and the judges saw this as a complete package.

ComfortCorrect competes in a growing segment. In 2012, nearly 5.9 million Americans had braces, compared to 4.4 million in 1996, a 34 percent increase, according to the American Association of Orthodontists.

The company has partnered with about 200 of the countrys top-tier orthodontists and hopes to have the product on the market by the end of this year. Clinical trials have begun to treat young people with cleft lip and palate at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

As a child, Pham had traditional braces, al-though his newly straightened teeth later became crooked because he refused to wear a retainer. No problem. Pham revealed he has worn a Com-fortCorrect prototype since spring 2014. Within two months, he said, ComfortCorrect braces had xed his teeth. Pham continues to use them.

Its very compelling to give a pitch to inves-tors and say, Im wearing them right now, said Pham, who calls himself Patient Zero. Im a walking billboard for ComfortCorrect.

G A M E C H A N G E RB Y C A S S I E P A T O N A N D M A R C B A L L O N

I T S B E E N S U R R E A L , K I N D O F

L I K E A C I N D E R E L L A

S T O R Y.

ComfortCorrect, a more comfortable and

virtually invisible alternative to braces, is

poised to dramatically affect the market.

Anyone whos had traditional braces has no doubt wished for a more comfortable, conve-nient and aesthetically pleasing alternative.

While Invisalign is one option, its eective-ness is limited to only a small number of patients who need minor corrections. However, a group of engineers and dentists from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC has a solution that addresses even the most severe cases and is virtually invisible.

ComfortCorrect, both the companys and the technologys name, will soon be oered as alternative to traditional braces and Invisalign. Its shaping up to be a game-changer in the teeth-straightening market.

Developed by its team of engineers and den-tists that includes USC Viterbi professors Behrokh Khoshevis and Yong Chen as well as Professor Hongsheng Tong of the Ostrow School, Comfort-Correct uses programmable wiring technology that sits behind the teeth, making it more comfortable and aordable than current solutions, according to orthodontist John Pham, ComfortCorrect CEO, co-inventor and an Ostrow graduate. Compared to competitors products, ComfortCorrect features an improved design and is manufactured using an advanced robotic process, resulting in precision treatment that requires fewer follow-up orthodon-tic visits, he added.

ComfortCorrect has secured $350,000 in funding from prominent university business plan competitions, including the Ideas Empowered Program, the USC Coulter Translational Re-search Partnership Program, the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering and, most recently, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition (MEPC).

STRAIGHT TEETH

CRO

OKE

D T

EETH

21

S A F E R WO R L D

A software program created by USC Viterbis Milind Tambe protects U.S. ports and airports from terrorists

and aims to protect wildlife from poachers.

In the early 2000s, USC Viterbi Computer Sci-ence Professor Milind Tambe and a graduate stu-dent began working on a game-theory algorithm to optimize interactions among robots. They found that randomized interactions resulted in the most eective coordination.

We were really just playing around with some concepts, Tambe said. Really, what could you do with this stu?

A couple years later, Tambe found out. At the inaugural meeting of CREATE (Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events), USCs Department of Homeland Security-funded national research counterterrorism center, one of the speakers suggested that the 9/11 terror-ists succeeded partly because American security operations had become so predictable. Suddenly, a light bulb went o, Tambe said. Maybe intel-ligent randomization could be of some value.

In the years since, Tambe and his research team have created ARMOR, a sophisticated software program that greatly enhances security around the world in a variety of settings, ranging from American ports and airports to Asian wildlife sanctuaries to African forests. The software and its many iterations use algorithms to randomize patrols to confuse would-be terrorists, poachers and other malefactors by making it impossible for them to identify exploitable patterns. Through machine learning, the software also continuously improves with the input of new data, such as when and where past attacks have occurred and the identication and ranking of high-value targets.

ARMOR provides additional protection to high-value assets through what Tambe calls intelligent randomization. That means important targets receive extra protection while others receive less oversight. Taken together, the software optimizes the use of limited resources to provide the greatest possible security.

Tambes research is rooted in mathematical game theory, which tries to predict how conict might play out between adversaries. According to the Bavesian Stackelberg game theory, the oense (the bad guys) observes the defense (counterter-rorism forces, park rangers and others) to identify and exploit any security weaknesses. ARMOR, through the creation of intelligently randomized schedules, aims to thwart attacks by keeping the potential criminals guessing.

I think Milinds work is very important, said Ariel Procaccia, a Tambe collaborator and as-sistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. I believe its one of the most important applications of algorithmic or computa-tional game theory out there.

Its certainly among the most widely used.In 2007, Los Angeles International Airport

counterterrorism experts began using ARMOR to randomize the scheduling of police checkpoints for the six inbound roads to LAX. That projects success led to the creation of a new version of the software, IRIS, to randomize the ight schedules of federal air marshals. In 2011, the U.S. Coast Guard began using a version of Tambes soft-ware, called PROTECT, to help protect the Port of

Boston. Today, the system operates at four major American ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together rank No. 9 in the world by container trac.

Thats not all. Last year, the Coast Guard suc-cessfully tested the system to thwart illegal shing of red snapper and sharks o Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. Conservationists in Malaysia, Indone-sia, Uganda, Nepal and elsewhere have tested or expressed interest in prototyping it to save endangered rhinos, tigers and other animals. The U.S. Navy, according to published reports, has ex-pressed interest in using it for anti-piracy patrols.

With a missionarys zeal, Tambe travels the globe to spread the word. His peregrinations have taken him from the Pentagon to national parks in Uganda. Tambe, a native of India with uency in both Western and Eastern cultures, treads carefully when discussing the software, always listening and learning while diplomatically build-ing consensus.

Tambe exudes deep-seated condence about ARMORs potential to make a dierence.

I expect it to spread like wildre throughout the world, including applications I cant even think of, he said. I mean its absolutely fantas-tic. Wherever theres an adversarial component involved, wow, we can be right there.

Dierent iterations of USC Viterbi ProfessorMilind Tambes ARMOR game-theory systems are in use, undergoing beta testing or being considered for future uses around the globe. See examples on pages 24-27.

I L L U S T R AT I O N : F O A F

By Marc Ballon

A

22 Spring 2015

23

Milind Tambes software enhances security around the world in a variety of settings, ranging from American ports and airports to Asian wildlife sanctuaries to African forests.

U.S. Ports PROTECT

U.S. Coast Guard ocials Joe DiRenzo and David Boyd visited Milind Tambe at his USC oce in 2010 to discuss his game-theoretical software and how he might modify it to optimize Coast Guard patrols of American ports.

DiRenzo, the Coast Guard Atlantic Areas senior adviser for science, technology innovation and research, and Boyd, senior operations analyst at Coast Guard Pacic Area, both went away impressed. They were even more impressed when the police stopped them at a checkpoint on their way to LAX. Ocers searched their car while dogs snied for drugs.

DiRenzo and Boyd knew that LAX police had employed Tambes system on roads leading in and out of the airport. Seeing it in action, though, brought home the value of intelligently random-izing scheduled patrols.

In 2011, Boston Harbor became the rst U.S. port to use Tambes PROTECT system to secure crowded piers, bridges and ferry terminals. The Port of New York came next, followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach and Houston.

Dr. Tambes research is both innovative and relevant in how we approach todays port security problem set, Boyd said. It is very exciting to see how it is being applied to the maritime domain.

Borrowing a page from Tambe, the Coast Guard randomizes scheduled patrols at most of its 361 ports. Still, PROTECT earns high marks for its eec-tiveness and ease of use. Perhaps thats why senior Coast Guard ocials have considered deploying it at other ports.

We think its reduced the likelihood of an at-tack, because now we have randomized patrols, said Craig Baldwin, program manager at the Coast Guard Research and Development Center. From a mathematical sense, I believe it achieves the best resource allocation.

Airplanes IRIS

The hijacking of four planes on Sept. 11, 2001, underscored Americas vulnerability to terrorists.

As part of its multipronged strategy to prevent future attacks, the Transportation Security Admin-istration (TSA) has deployed Milind Tambes IRIS software since 2009. IRIS intelligently randomizes federal air marshals ight schedules to make their air patrols unpredictable to would-be malefactors.

For obvious reasons, TSA refuses to reveal when, where and on what ights it deploys IRIS. However, the agency uses the software at un-named airports around the country and often on international ights, Tambe said.

In some cases, when [TSA] have had to in-crease the number of air marshals, theyve really exercised IRIS a lot more, he said.

TSA appears quite satised with the software and is in ongoing talks about upgrading it and expanding its use, Tambe added.

In 2011, the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) awarded a TSA and USC team the prestigious RIST award for developing the

intelligently randomized software. The university, former Federal Air Marshal Service Director Robert Bray said in testimony before the U.S. Congress, was the rst nonDepartment of Defense winner in history.

LAX ARMOR

In 2006, the RAND Corp. released a report stat-ing that some terrorist groups viewed Los Angeles International Airport as an attractive target. Unlike many other airports, LAX has several roads leading into it, giving potential terrorists many possible routes for curbside bombings or other attacks.

RAND recommended round-the-clock security checkpoints along the ve thoroughfares to LAX. However, the estimated cost proved prohibitive. Erroll G. Southers, then chief of homeland security and intelligence for LAX Police, had a dierent idea.

Through his aliation with CREATE, USCs Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, Southers knew Milind Tambe and was impressed by his work on intelligently randomized scheduling.

The LAX Police successfully tested the software in 2007. After tweaking it based on ocer feed-back, Southers said