Each Atlantic Coast Conference university has set out to find their very best students to compete against the other ACC schools in this inaugural year of the ACC InVenture Prize. 

On March 30 and 31st, the best student teams of the ACC will come to Georgia Tech and pitch their inventions to a panel of expert judges. The competition will be held in front of a live audience and broadcast live on television, as well as streamed online.

Find out more about this exciting event by linking us at http://accinventure.gatech.edu!

• A student must complete the online application form in order to apply to present at the symposium. A short abstract (max. 250 words) of your research is required as part of the application. 
• For multiple students interested in co-presenting, please note that only one application should be submitted per team.
• Accepted applicants will receive additional details on their participation in early April, and oral presenters will also be notified of their presentation time slot and room number.

RULES AND ELIGIBILITY

• Students may apply to present either a poster presentation or an oral presentation.
• Undergraduate students can present either individually or as a team, and a team presentation may have a maximum of six students participating.
• Only currently-enrolled undergraduate students are allowed to present at the symposium. Graduate students, post-docs, and faculty are not permitted to present and should not be included on the application. 
• Applications are accepted on a first come, first served basis. The faculty mentor listed on the application must be associated with a school or department at Georgia Tech.

Learn more and apply online.

• 10:00 a.m.
• Ebenezer Baptist Church

This year, 20 spaces will be available to the Georgia Tech community through the MLK Day of Service program.

To learn more about Georgia Tech’s MLK Celebration, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Commemorative Service, visit www.diversity.gatech.edu/mlk-celebration.

To learn more about Georgia Tech’s MLK Celebration, including the MLK Day of Service, visit www.diversity.gatech.edu/mlk-celebration.

View the path of the Aug. 21, 2017, solar eclipse. 

Recognize the role of the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse in confirming Albert Einstein's ideas about the fabric of space, gravity, and general relativity.

The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering is hosting a reception in honor of

100 Years of Aviation at Georgia Tech

Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB)
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) Seminar Room
950 Atlantic Drive NW

"The Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering Contributions to and from the Military Services Since 1917"

a talk by

Dr. Daniel P. Schrage

Professor and Director, VLRCOE and IPLE Lab
School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech
Colonel, USAR, retired

Abstract:
The Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering has roots in the Georgia Tech Military School of Aviation which was briefly established in 1917. Georgia Tech graduates, both from ROTC and regular graduations have made substantial contributions to the military services ever since. In addition, the Military Services have funded numerous education and research grants and programs to the School of AE which have helped make it the top graduate and undergraduate public aerospace school in the USA. This presentation will highlight these contributions from Georgia Tech School of AE graduates to the Military Services, as well as major programs that the Military Services have established and funded at Georgia Tech.

The original founders and the first Class of 1917 are illustrated in the figure below.

Please RSVP for this reception at dcl@gatech.edu

Our keynote speaker is Karl Ronn.  Karl is the Managing Director of Innovation Portfolio Partners.  He helps Fortune 500 companies create new businesses and helps entrepreneurs start category-creating new companies. Previously, he was Vice President of Research and Development and General Manager of New Business for Procter & Gamble, where he was one of the key innovators behind several billion-dollar brands, including Febreze, Swiffer, and Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

A full program can be found here: http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/innovation-conference/

Register to attend.

The SKA radio telescope dish array is coming to South Africa toward the end of this decade. When completed it will consist of thousands of radio antennas spread out over an area of thousands of kilometres in Southern Africa.

The SKA will create 3D maps of the universe 10,000 times faster than any imaging radio telescope array ever built. Precursor telescopes based on SKA technologies are under construction here in South African and in Western Australia and will begin scientific investigations in late 2016. These developments foreshadow one of the most significant big data challenges of the coming decade and the beginning a new era of big data in radio astronomy, in which researchers working at the forefront of data science will be a critical part of.

Russ Taylor will deliver the lecture. He is the director of the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy and the South African Joint Research Chair in Radio Astronomy, University of Cape Town and University of Western Cape.

About this Frontiers in Science Lecture

This lecture is one of two activities billed as Bold Ideas in Physics: Celebrating David Ritz Finkelstein. 

School of Physics Emeritus Professor David Ritz Finkelstein (1929-2016) was the first to show, at age 29, that anything falling inside a black hole cannot escape. The work influenced eminent theoretical physicists, including Lev Landau, Roger Penrose, and John Wheeler. It helped bring general relativity into mainstream physics, encouraging today’s vibrant research on black holes.

Among the first to bring topology into quantum physics, Finkelstein discovered phenomena called “kinks” and solitons and formulated a theory of electroweak unification. He also tried to quantize geometry. But his enduring, bold passion was developing a universal physical theory consistent with both quantum theory and gravity theory.

Harvard University physicist Sidney Coleman, a giant of theoretical physics, described Finkelstein as “a brilliant scientist with a passion for long shots,” and Finkelstein’s work as of “great significance, extraordinary penetration, and ten years ahead of everyone else.”

To celebrate Finkelstein’s life and work, the College of Sciences School of Physics has organized this Frontiers in Science lecture and an exhibit. The activities are made possible in part by a generous contribution from Dr. Ramon and Mrs. Jody Franco.

About the Exhibit

Bold Ideas in Physics: Celebrating David Ritz Finkelstein

The exhibition highlights the life and career contributions of Finkelstein and connects his scientific insights to recent work and discoveries involving Georgia Tech research scientists. Finkelstein’s life-long engagement in scientific inquiry, as well as the inspiration he took from aspects of culture not directly associated with his scientific pursuits, offer a model and example to students and future generations of scientists.

The exhibit runs from Jan. 23 to Feb 19, 2017, in the Ground Floor Atrium of the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, 4th St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30313.

Hillel Chiel, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biology, Neurosciences & BME
Carse Western Reserve University

How does the nervous system control behavior? To answer this question requires an understanding of neural circuitry, biomechanics, and behavior. To address this question, we have studied an experimentally tractable experimental system, feeding behavior in the marine mollusk Aplysia californica. The results of our studies have provided insights into mutlifunctionality at the levels of both neurons and muscles, the importance of neuromodulation for the control of behavior, the neural dynamics that allow both noise and sensory feedback to enhance motor control, and how sensory feedback can shape motor variability to enhance behavior. We have also begun exploring novel technology to make it possible to monitor and manipulate the nervous system as a way of improving our understanding of neural dynamics.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

Members of Prof. Verriest's group will present their research

3:00 PM - 3:45PM  Prof. Erik Verriest will give a talk on

     Modeling and Control of hybrid systems and systems with delay, with applications from population dynamics to post-Newtonian gravitation.

3:45PM -- 4:00PM Break with Discussions

4:00PM - 4:45PM  The second talk will be given by Nak-seung (Patrick) Hyun and Aftab Ahmed, further presenting details on aspects of impulsive systems and delay systems.

4:45PM - 5PM Discussion of open problems stemming from the presentations.

Abstract: This talk contains two parts. First I will discuss our work related to causal modeling in hybrid systems. The idea is to model jump conditions as caused by impulsive inputs. While this is well defined for linear systems, the notion of impulsive inputs poses problems in the nonlinear case. We demonstrate a viable approach based on nonstandard analysis.
The second part deals with dynamical systems with delays. First I will show an application of the maximum principle to a delayed resource allocation problem in population dynamics solving a problem in the model of a bee colony cycle. Next I discuss some problems regarding causality in systems with varying delays. These problems relate to the well-posedness (existence and uniqueness) and causality of the mathematical models for physical phenomena, and illustrate why one should consider the physics first and then the mathematics. Finally, I consider the post Newtonian problem as a problem with state dependent delay.
Einstein’s field equations relate space time geometry to matter and energy distribution. These tensorial equations are so unwieldy that solutions are only known in some very specific cases. A semi-relativistic approximation is desirable: One where space-time may still be considered as flat, but where Newton’s equations (where gravity acts instantaneously) are replaced by a post-Newtonian theory, involving propagation of gravity at the speed of light. As this retardation depends on the geometry of the point masses, a dynamical system with state dependent delay results, where delay and state are implicitly related. We investigate several problems with the Lagrange-Bürman inversion technique and perturbation expansions. Interesting phenomena (entrainment, dynamic friction, fission and orbital speeds) not explainable by the Newtonian theory emerge.

Further details on aspects of impulsive systems and delay systems will be elaborated on by Nak-seung (Patrick) Hyun and Aftab Ahmed respectively.

Biography:  Erik I. Verriest received the degree of ’Burgerlijk Electrotechnisch Ingenieur’ from the State University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium in 1973 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 1975 and 1980 respectively. He was with the Control Systems Laboratory and the
Hybrid Computation Centre, Ghent, Belgium in 1973-74. He joined the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech in 1980, spending three years at the Georgia Tech Lorraine campus in Metz, France. His interests are in mathematical system theory, with focus on delay - differential systems, model reduction for nonlinear systems, and periodic and hybrid systems with applications to locomotion. He is a fellow of the IEEE and member of the Royal
Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. He is a member of the MAA, AMS and SIAM.  He served on several IPC’s and the IFAC Committee on Linear Systems.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Phani Vadrevu on Jan. 27, 2017

NDSS'17 Conference Preview: "Enabling Reconstruction of Attacks on Users via Efficient Browsing Snapshots"

Supported by Jackson National Life Insurance Company

Apply now and be one of the 30 teams we intend to accept.  The deadline for Summer semester is March 2017.  If you wish to join the program starting in Summer 2017, applying now means you'll be screened before other later-applying teams.

In this event, you will get the chance to learn more about CREATE-X, Startup Launch, and have an opportunity to ask us all of your questions.

Pizza and Refreshments will be served ... RSVP here.

Abstract:
Neural responses and behavior are influenced by internal brain states, such as arousal, vigilance, or task context. Ongoing variations of these internal states affect global patterns of neural activity, giving rise to apparent variability of neural responses to sensory stimuli, from trial-to-trial and across time within single trials. Demultiplexing these endogenously generated and externally driven signals proved difficult with traditional techniques based on trial-averaged responses of single neurons, which dismiss neural variability as noise. In this talk, I will describe my recent work leveraging multi-electrode neural activity recordings and computational models to uncover how internal brain states interact with goal-directed behavior. I will show that ensemble neural activity within single columns of the primate visual cortex spontaneously fluctuates between phases of vigorous (On) and faint (Off) spiking. These endogenous On-Off dynamics, reflecting global changes in arousal, are also modulated at a local scale during spatial attention and predict behavioral performance. I will also demonstrate that these On-Off dynamics provide a single unifying mechanism that explains general features of correlated variability classically observed in cortical responses (e.g., changes in neural correlations during attention). I will conclude by sketching out a roadmap for developing a general theory that will allow us to discover dynamic computations from large-scale neural recordings and to link these computations to behavior.

Abstract

A first-person video records not only what is out in the environment but also what is in our head (intention and attention) at the time via social and physical interactions. It is invisible but it can be revealed by fixation, camera motion, and visual semantics. In this talk, I will present a computational model to decode our intention and attention from first-person cameras when interacting with (1) scene and (2) people.

A person exerts his/her intention through applying physical force and torque to scenes and objects, which effects in visual sensation. We leverage the first person visual sensation to precisely compute force and torque that the first person experienced by integrating visual semantics, 3D reconstruction, and inverse optimal control. Such visual sensation also allows associating with our past experiences that eventually provide a strong cue to predict future activities. When interacting with other people, social attention is a medium that controls group behaviors, e.g., how they form a group and move. We learn the geometric and visual relationship between group behaviors and social attention measured from first-person cameras. Based on the learned relationship, we derive a predictive model to localize social attention from a third-person view. 

Bio

Hyun Soo Park is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He is interested in understanding human visual sensorimotor behaviors from first-person cameras. Prior to joining the UMN, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Park earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Organized by the Student Government Association with support from Georgia Tech's Office of Government and Community Relations, this event is a unique opportunity for students to get a first-hand look at state government during the legislative session and to learn more about how the goings-on at the Capitol affect them as students and residents. The gathering is attended by students and legislators with an affiliation with Georgia Tech together with Georgia Tech alumni and friends who work in and around the Capitol. Georgia Tech students are welcome to attend by registering online at the link below. Attendance is granted on a first come, first served basis until all space is full via the registration site.  Free transportation is provided from campus to and from the Capitol.

This year, we are proud to partner with students from Georgia's four research institutions that will also host days at the Capitol on February 1st: Georgia Institute of Technology, Augusta University, Georgia State University, and University of Georgia.

Register now!

Schedule of events: (*lunch program attendance optional)
8:00AM - Students depart campus on Stinger buses for State Capitol
8:30AM - Breakfast and networking with elected officials and staff members
9:15AM - Photo on Capitol steps with President Peterson
10:00AM - Session begins, viewing from House and Senate galleries
10:30AM - Students depart State Capitol
11:00AM - Students return to campus
(*lunch program is at capacity)
 

Given its tremendous application potential, IoT has attracted attention from both academia and industry. Dr. Zhao will present several approaches that may lead to implementation of IoT and examine their advantages and disadvantages. He’ll also discuss the IoT project “Winternet” and demonstrate its application. Finally, Dr. Zhao will talk about critical issues that must be addressed in order to fully realize the objectives and potentials of IoT.

Bio:

An internationally-renowned scholar, Dr. Wei Zhao has been serving as the eighth Rector (i.e., President) of the University of Macau since 2008. Before joining the University of Macau, Dr. Zhao served as the Dean of the School of Science at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the U.S., Director for the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Senior Associate Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University. Dr. Zhao completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China, in 1977, and received his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983 and 1986, respectively. During his academic career, he has also served as a faculty member at Shaanxi Normal University, Amherst College, the University of Adelaide, Texas A&M University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Zhao has made significant contributions in distributed computing, real-time systems, computer networks, and cyberspace security. His research group has received numerous awards including the outstanding paper award from the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, the best paper award from the IEEE National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, an award on technology transfer from the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency, and the best paper award from the IEEE International Communication Conference. In 2011, he was named by the Ministry of Science and Technology as the Chief Scientist of the national 973 Internet of Things Project.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Kangjie Lu on Feb. 3, 2017

"Defeating Advanced Memory-Error Exploits by Preventing Information Leaks"

ABSTRACT   |    Widely used systems such as operating systems (OS) are implemented in unsafe programming languages for efficiency. Hence, these foundational systems inherently suffer from a variety of memory errors, and the exploitation of memory errors has become a critical attack vector. The past several years have continuously witnessed critical attacks targeting systems belonging to individuals, enterprises, and government agencies. Two typical goals of these attacks are to leak sensitive data and to control victim systems.

In this talk, I will first present that since modern systems widely deploy memory-layout randomization techniques, leaking a randomized code pointer has become a prerequisite for advanced control attacks such as code-reuse attacks. Therefore, preventing information leaks can be a general defense that not only stops data leaks but also defeats control attacks. Then, I will present two systems I developed, UniSan and ASLR-Guard.  While UniSan completely eliminates information leaks caused by reading uninitialized variables (the most common cause) in OS kernels, ASLR-Guard either prevents code-pointer leaks or renders the leaks useless in deriving the value of code pointers. Both UniSan and ASLR-Guard impose negligible performance overhead to the secured complex systems such as OS kernels and web servers.

BIO   |   Kangjie Lu is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. His research interests include security and privacy, programming languages, and operating systems. He is particularly interested in automatically uncovering and addressing fundamental security problems, and securing widely used systems while preserving their reliability and efficiency. During his Ph.D. study, he worked as an intern at NEC Labs America and Samsung Research America, and as a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS).

• Part One: Introduction (including patentability requirements, identification of patent documents, patent classifications and patent search strategies)
• Part Two: Hands-on practice (covering classification search using USPTO's PatFT/AppFT, and EPO's Espacenet; Hybrid search using classification and keywords)

Prerequisites: Preview the 7-Step patent search strategy video by the USPTO before coming to class

For more information, please email: patentscoordinator@library.gatech.edu

Directions & Parking Information 

Abstract

TBD

Bio

Pratap Tokekar is an assistant professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He research in robotics focuses on algorithms that enable mobile robots to actively sense and gather data in environments. Additionally, he develops systems for applications related to environmental monitoring.

After completing his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota in 2014, Tokekar worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the GRASP lab at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Professor Vijay Kumar.

He received his Bachelor of Technology degree in Electronics and Telecommunication from the College of Engineering in Pune, India, where he was part of the Robot Study Circle lab.

Adam Cohen, Ph.D.
Professor
Chemistry, Chemical Biology & Physics
Harvard University

To study a neural circuit, one would like to probe the activity of many neurons, with high resolution in space and time. A key challenge has been the difficulty of visualizing changes in transmembrane potential. We discovered that a protein derived from a Dead Sea microorganism could function as an exquisitely fast and sensitive fluorescent reporter of membrane voltage. We developed optical tools for simultaneous optical perturbation and optical readout of membrane voltage. Using these tools we have studied electrical activity in primary neurons /in vitro/, in acute brain slice, and in live mice. We have also studied human iPSC-based neuronal models of diseases such as pain, epilepsy, and ALS.Optical electrophysiology provides new insights into these complex bioelectric phenomena.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

• Part One: Introduction (including patentability requirements, identification of patent documents, patent classifications and patent search strategies)
• Part Two: Hands-on practice (covering classification search using USPTO's PatFT/AppFT, and EPO's Espacenet; Hybrid search using classification and keywords)

Prerequisites: Preview the 7-Step patent search strategy video by the USPTO before coming to class

For more information, please email: patentscoordinator@library.gatech.edu

Directions & Parking Information 

Prof. Hua Wang
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract: Cells are highly complex systems that often exhibit multi-physics responses under external stimulus. To achieve holistic cellular characterizations, it is essential to create interfaces that can provide (1) single-cell resolution, (2) multi-modality interfacing with cells, (3) real-time two-way communication (sensing and actuation), (4) compatibility with high throughput massively parallel operations, and (5) possibility of production at commercial quantities. The nanometer-scale complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process is a potential candidate to realize cell-microelectronics interfaces. Electronics-based computations and signal processing, such as application of machine learning methods, may drastically relax the requirement on the physical interface and lead to further pixel miniaturization.

In this talk, we will present several fully integrated multi-modality CMOS cellular joint sensor/actuator arrays with multiple sensing modalities in every array pixel to characterize different cell physiological responses, including extracellular voltage recording, cellular impedance mapping, optical detection with shadow imaging and bioluminescence sensing, and thermal monitoring. Each pixel also contains electrical voltage/current excitation for cellular stimulation. These reported CMOS cellular joint sensor/actuator arrays is composed up-to 22k multi-modality pixels on each chip with spatial resolution down to 17um*17um/pixel. Multi-modality cellular sensing at the pixel level is supported, which enables holistic cell characterization and concurrent joint-modality physiological monitoring on the same cellular sample. Comprehensive biological experiments with different living cell samples demonstrate the functionality and benefit of the proposed multi-modality cellular interfacing in cell-based assay and drug screening applications.

Bio: Hua Wang received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. He worked at Intel Corporation and Skyworks Solutions before joining the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2012. Dr. Wang received 2017 Outstanding Young Engineer Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2015, the 2016 Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, the 2014 DURIP Award, Georgia Tech Roger P. Webb ECE Outstanding Junior Faculty Member Award in 2015, and Lockheed Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015. He currently holds the Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professorship of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests are in innovating mixed-signal, RF, and mm-wave integrated circuits and systems for wireless communication and bioelectronics applications. Dr. Wang is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters (MWCL). He is currently a Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member for IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC), IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), IEEE Biopolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM), IEEE Sensors Conference, and IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS). He serves as the Chair of the Atlanta’s IEEE CAS/SSCS joint chapter, which won the IEEE SSCS Outstanding Chapter Award in 2014.

Doby Rahnev, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Georgia Tech

How do humans and other animals make decisions? A large body of work has investigated this question in the perceptual domain where subjects make decisions about simple visual stimuli. A critical question concerns the “dynamics” of these decisions: how do they evolve over time and how do top-down processes influence them? In the first part of the talk, I’ll present evidence for the existence of a hierarchy of top-down control processes. These processes influence the selection, decision, and evaluation of visual stimuli and originate from progressively rostral areas within the human lateral frontal cortex. In the second part of the talk, I’ll describe recent work into the computations underlying perceptual decisions. I’ll argue that, contrary to popular theories such as drift diffusion and probabilistic population codes, perceptual decisions are based neither on point estimates nor on full probability distributions. Instead, they are likely based on hybrid representations that include a point estimate supplanted by strength of evidence for that estimate. Finally, I’ll discuss the implications of this coding scheme for human optimality.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Wei Meng on Feb. 17, 2017

"Worse Than You Thought: New Security Threats in Online Tracking"

ABSTRACT   |   When we browse a website, data about us is collected and used by the website we directly visit and by many we do not. Collected data usually is used to provide us with better services. On the other hand, collected data may be used in ways that are out of our control. Although this practice can integrate content from different parties for a personalized, rich and dynamic online experience, it also puts users' data at risk.

In this talk I will first describe a new threat that pollutes the collected user data to influence what we see. For example, adversaries can promote a search result on Google, a video on YouTube, or a product on Amazon. Malicious publishers can leverage similar exploits to commit ad fraud. I will then present TrackMeOrNot, a system that provides end users with better control of how they are tracked online. TrackMeOrNot aims to preserve a good online experience while protecting a user's privacy. It uses an anonymous browsing profile to intelligently and automatically hide a user's sensitive browsing activity from online trackers. I will also discuss other emerging threats in online tracking.

BIO   |   Wei Meng is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech, advised by Prof. Wenke Lee. Meng studies web security and privacy. He is particularly interested in building systems to protect end users. His research shows how online tracking and personalization can be abused to compromise the integrity and privacy of personal data. Meng was one of the top-10 finalists in the applied research competition of New York University's Cyber Security Awareness Week '16 for his recent work about online tracking. He received his Bachelor's of Engineering in Computer Science from Tsinghua University in 2012.

Abstract

Every team has top performers — people who excel at working in a team to find the right solutions in complex, difficult situations. These top performers include nurses who run hospital floors, emergency response teams, air traffic controllers, and factory line supervisors. While they may outperform the most sophisticated optimization and scheduling algorithms, they cannot often tell us how they do it. Similarly, even when a machine can do the job better than most of us, it can’t explain how. In this talk I share recent work investigating effective ways to blend the unique decision-making strengths of humans and machines. I discuss the development of computational models that enable machines to efficiently infer the mental state of human teammates and thereby collaborate with people in richer, more flexible ways. Our studies demonstrate statistically significant improvements in people’s performance on military, healthcare, and manufacturing tasks when aided by intelligent machine teammates. 

Bio

Julie Shah is an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the Interactive Robotics Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In 2014, she received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, and MIT Technology Review included her on its list of 35 Innovators Under 35.

Shah’s work with industrial human-robot collaboration was also included on Technology Review’s 2013 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. She has received international recognition in the form of best-paper awards and nominations from the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, and the International Symposium on Robotics. Shah earned degrees in aeronautics and astronautics and in autonomous systems from MIT.

For more information, visit www.startuplaunch.gatech.edu. 

To apply now, visit www.startuplaunch.gatech.edu/apply.

If you would like to learn more, we have a great video on YouTube! Please visit to learn more about what Startup Launch is all about:  https://youtu.be/NG_v1_TApNk  

Audrey Duarte, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Psychology
Georgia Tech

One of the most common and arguably most distressing such declines in aging, in large part because it is also an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease, is that of associative memory. Associative memory is the ability to bind and retrieve associations between items. These associations give long-term memories their episodic quality and allow us to distinguish one event from another. Healthy older adults report everyday difficulties in, for example, learning new names, and remembering the location of a placed item. Despite the prevalence of age-related associative memory complaints, the underlying neural mechanisms are poorly understood. In our lab, we use multiple methods including EEG and fMRI as well as neuropsychological assessment of brain injury patients to investigate this issue. Our work to date has shown that young and older adults engage similar cognitive processes and neural systems to support associative memory performance. However, age-related under-recruitment of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and its associated operations is the most likely contributor to older adults’ impoverished associative memories. Our results have led us to postulate that the highest order PFC operations are disproportionately affected by age-related pathology and underlie much of the cognitive decline experienced in aging. Current research in the lab uses a multimodal approach to disentangle the contributions of PFC subregions to both encoding and retrieval to obtain a more complete understanding of the factors underlying age-related associative memory impairments.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

Shyh-Chiang Shen
Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract: The III-Nitride (III-N) materials have enabled several important technology breakthroughs in recent years, most notably as the building semiconductors for the solid-state lighting technology and next-generation detecting deep ultraviolet (DUV) photon emitters and detectors for applications in water sanitation, bio-detection, and astrophysics studies.  The wide bandgap properties and high electron saturation velocity in III-N materials also attracted extensive R&D efforts in high-power millimeter-wave and radio-frequency electronic circuits.  Today, III-N HFETs are highly sought in energy-efficient DC-DC converters from 12V up to 1.2-kV.  As a complementary device technology, III-N heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) and related bipolar switches offer new opportunities for ultra-high-power operation because of their normally off and vertical current conduction capabilities. This talk will present a summary of III-N electronic device development for power applications.  We have demonstrated state-of-the-art InGaN HBTs at Georgia Tech and high-performance GaN PIN rectifiers with device characteristics approaching the theoretical limit for GaN materials.  With significant progress in the development of III-N transistors and vertical bipolar switches, GaN-based power electronic devices could offer a disruptive technology basis for the future high-temperature, high-power electronic components in applications such as electric vehicles, HVAC systems, and future power grids.

Bio: Shyh-Chiang Shen received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001. His expertise and background have been in advanced semiconductor device research and high-speed integrated circuits.  He was involved in the research of low-voltage RF MEMS switches and ion-implanted GaAs MESFET, and developed a proprietary InP SHBT technology that led to the first demonstration of monolithically integrated 40Gb/s differential-output optical receivers.  Shen joined Georgia Tech in 2005 and is conducting focused research on III-N device technologies, including deep-ultraviolet (DUV) high-sensitivity avalanche photodiodes, III-N lasers in blue-green, UVA and DUV bands, high-voltage III-N HFETs, and InGaN HBTs.  Shen is a senior member of the IEEE and OSA.  He holds 8 awarded U.S. patents and is an author or a co-author of more than 150 technical papers in refereed journals and conferences. He is a recipient of the 2000 Gregory E. Stillman fellowship in ECE at UIUC, the 2010 Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award in the School of ECE at Georgia Tech, the 2011 Outstanding Junior Faculty Member Award in the School of ECE at Georgia Tech, and the 2012 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award at Georgia Tech.

Abstract:
Converging work suggests that oscillatory patterns in electrophysiological data are fundamental motifs in brain networks, which may underlie between-region communication. Abnormalities in these oscillations may result in pathology. In this talk I will describe my work using a combination of invasive (electrocorticography, ECoG, and local field potentials, LFPs) and noninvasive (electroencephalography, EEG) human electrophysiology to describe oscillatory activity in the motor system. The talk will cover putative mechanisms by which these oscillations may drive behavior (specifically response control), and how they may be awry in diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. I will also discuss potential use of these oscillations as feedback signals for neuroprosthetics. This work addresses fundamental principles about the role of oscillatory patterns in the motor network, themes that likely extend to other brain networks that underlie diverse behaviors/functions.

The Future of Higher Education and Georgia Tech
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Student Center Theater
Guest speaker: Provost Rafael L. Bras

Other conversation series events include:

Research Priorities and Funding Opportunities in the New Federal Administration  
Thursday, March 16, 2017
11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Ferst Center Lobby
Guest speakers: Dr. Steve Cross, executive vice president for Research and Mr. Robert Knotts, director of Federal Relations

Advancing Tech’s Physical and Workplace Capabilities: A Plan for Building a Resilient Campus
Thursday, April 6, 2017
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Seminar Room, EBB
Guest speaker: Mr. Steve Swant, executive vice president for Administration and Finance 

Have a question? In addition to questions asked at the event, questions will be accepted in advance. Note that all questions must be received at least 24 hours in advance and will be answered during the event as time allows. Submit a question here. 

To address these questions, Georgia Tech ADVANCE Professors Kim Cobb for the College of Sciences, and Dana Randall, for the College of Computing, have organized a half-day workshop. In this workshop you will:

• learn about the latest research on the pros and cons of social media use by STEM professionals (Should you do it?)
• share and discuss strategies for effective engagement with colleagues and seasoned social media experts (How should you do it?)
• design a strategy for your own effective engagement, including identifying audience and key messages (Let’s do it!)

Register here.

Paige Jarreau, science communication specialist at Louisiana State University, will keynote the workshop with the talk: "Social Media: Engaging for Impact in STEM Fields."

 To move over, around, or through obstacles in the world, robots and animals need to employ a repertoire of dynamic and dexterous behaviors.  Since the world is ever-changing, these behaviors must be synthesized on-the-fly and adapted to diverse environmental conditions.  At present, animals deftly outperform autonomous robots in this regard.  We seek tools that will enable the performance of dynamic legged robots to surpass that of their animal counterparts.

In this talk, we discuss advances in modeling and control of dynamic legged locomotion.  Unlike some areas of robotics and biomechanics, models for most dynamic legged behaviors have poor predictive power.  In particular, rigid-body models of legged locomotion yield predictions that vary discontinuously when multiple limbs contact terrain.  By introducing compliance in hips and feet, we show that model predictions vary smoothly with respect to initial conditions (including states, parameters, and inputs). 

Smooth model predictions are amenable to scalable algorithms for estimation, optimization, and learning; we briefly discuss our current efforts and future plans in these directions.  We conclude that compliance in hips and feet perform morphological computations that can simplify modeling and control of dynamic legged locomotion.

BIOGRAPHY

Sam Burden earned his BS with Honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2008.  He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California in Berkeley in 2014, where he subsequently spent one year as a Postdoctoral Scholar.  In 2015, he returned to UW EE as an Assistant Professor; in 2016, he received a Young Investigator award from the Army Research Office (ARO-YIP).  Sam is broadly interested in discovering and formalizing principles of sensorimotor control.  Specifically, he focuses on applications in dynamic and dexterous robotics, neuromechanical motor control, and human-cyber-physical systems.  In his spare time, he teaches robotics to students of all ages in classrooms and campus events.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Mattia Fazzini on Feb. 24, 2017

"Tagging and Tracking of Multi-level Host Events for Transparent Computing"

ABSTRACT   |   Advanced persistent threats (APTs) are characterized by their abilities to render existing security mechanisms ineffective; for example, APT activities can blend in with normal user and program activities to blindside intrusion detection systems. APTs can evade security protection because existing mechanisms lack the sufficient visibility into user, program and operating system activities to ascertain the authenticity of an activity and the provenance of its data. For example, it is not possible for a network intrusion detection system to determine that data sent from an end-host has been modified by a malicious browser extension after a user had entered the data on a web form. On the other hand, if we have full tracking of how data is processed by the browser, intuitively, we can detect such an APT activity.

In this talk, I will present THEIA, a system for tagging and tracking of multi-level host events and data for security analysis such as APT detection. THEIA is a system based on full-system record and replay and fine-grained dynamic information-flow analysis. THEIA is able to track data provenance from user input to program internal representation, and to filesystem storage and network output, and likewise, from network or filesystem to program internals, and to user interface. THEIA achieves both high accuracy and high efficiency by recording just the sufficient amount of data at runtime, instead of coupling computation-heavy tag analyses to the system’s execution, and by performing thorough analysis while replaying the recorded events. We evaluated THEIA in the context of the Transparent Computing program and observed that it achieves high accuracy while encountering low runtime overhead.

BIO   |   Mattia Fazzini is a Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of software testing, program analysis, and computer security. During his Ph.D. studies, he worked as a research assistant at the National University of Singapore and as associate specialist at the University of California Berkeley.

Abstract

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) can be used to artificially activate paralyzed lower limb muscles to restore walking and standing function in persons with neurological disorders. Despite its potential, FES-based walking neuroprosthesis has achieved limited acceptability among persons with paraplegia. This low acceptance is primarily due to the early onset of muscle fatigue during FES and difficulty in obtaining a consistent and reliable response from the paralyzed muscle using traditional control methods. 

We are employing a hybrid strategy that integrates FES with a powered exoskeleton to overcome these hurdles. This hybrid strategy has several advantages. The main advantage is that the effects of muscle fatigue and any inconsistent response from FES can be compensated by the active exoskeleton, which can potentially lead to improved functional mobility in users with neurological impairments. Other advantages include a reduction in the overall weight of the exoskeleton and neuroplastic improvements in the neuromuscular system due to FES. However, closed-loop control methods are required to effectively integrate FES with a powered exoskeleton because the hybrid combination leads to redundancy in actuation and needs criteria to allocate control between FES and an electric motor.

I will present algorithms and models recently developed by our research group to control the hybrid exoskeleton. These methods include: 1) a muscle fatigue model to inform the onset of muscle fatigue and muscle recovery during FES, 2) Shared control of FES and electric motor based on the fatigue model, and  3) muscle synergy inspired control of a hybrid walking exoskeleton.

Bio

Nitin Sharma is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include intelligent and robust control of functional electrical stimulation (FES), modeling, optimization, and control of FES-elicited walking, as well as control of uncertain nonlinear systems with input and state delays. Two NSF awards and one NIH R03 Award fund his current research in hybrid exoskeletons.

Before joining the Pittsburgh faculty in 2012, Sharma was an Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Sharma received his Ph.D. in 2010 from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. He received an O. Hugo Schuck Award and the Best Student Paper Award in Robotics at the 2009 ASME Dynamic Systems and Controls Conference. He was a finalist for the Best Student Paper Award at the 2008 IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control. 

Abstract

Locomotion and perception are common threads between robotics and biology. Understanding these phenomena at a mechanical level involves nonlinear dynamics and the coordination of many degrees of freedom. In this talk, I will discuss geometric approaches to organizing this information in two problem domains: 1) Undulatory locomotion of snakes and swimmers; and 2) vibration propagation in spider webs.

In the first section, I will discuss how differential geometry and Lie Group Theory provide insight into the locomotion of undulating systems through a vocabulary of lengths, areas, and curvatures. In particular, a tool called the Lie Bracket combines these geometric concepts to describe the effects of cyclic changes in the locomotor’s shape, such as the gaits used by swimming or crawling systems. Building on these results, I will demonstrate that the geometric techniques are useful beyond the “clean” ideal systems on which they have traditionally been developed, and can provide insight into the motion of systems with considerably more complex dynamics, such as locomotors in granular media.

In the second section, I will turn my attention to vibration propagation through spiders’ webs. Due to poor eyesight, many spiders rely on web vibrations for situational awareness. Web-borne vibrations are used to determine the location of prey, predators, and potential mates. The influence of web geometry and composition on web vibrations is important for understanding spider’s behavior and ecology. Past studies on web vibrations have experimentally measured the frequency response of web geometries by removing threads from existing webs. The full influence of web structure and tension distribution on vibration transmission; however, has not been addressed in prior work. We have constructed physical artificial webs and computer models to better understand the effect of web structure on vibration transmission. These models provide insight into the propagation of vibrations through the webs, the frequency response of the bare web, and the influence of the spider’s mass and stiffness on the vibration transmission patterns.

Bio

Ross L. Hatton is an assistant professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University, where he directs the Laboratory for Robotics and Applied Mechanics (LRAM). He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and an SB from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanics of locomotion and sensory perception, making advances in mathematical theory accessible to an engineering audience, and on finding abstractions that facilitate human control of unconventional locomotors. Hatton’s research group also works with local industry to transfer modern developments in robotics from the lab to the factory or into commercial production. Hatton is a 2017 recipient of an NSF CAREER Award.

John Krakauer, M.A., M.D.
Director, Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair
Professor of Neurology
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

There are critical differences in the potential for rehabilitation of impairment early and late after stroke. Early after stroke the proportional recovery rule for spontaneous biological recovery applies, as does the idea of a sensitive period. Late after stroke, rehabilitation relies on motor learning principles. We will need new behavioral treatments augmented by pharmacology and perhaps non-invasive brain stimulation to rectify the overall ineffectiveness of current neurorehabilitation.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

• Part One: Introduction (including patentability requirements, identification of patent documents, patent classifications and patent search strategies)
• Part Two: Hands-on practice (covering classification search using USPTO's PatFT/AppFT, and EPO's Espacenet; Hybrid search using classification and keywords)

Prerequisites: Preview the 7-Step patent search strategy video by the USPTO before coming to class

For more information, please email: patentscoordinator@library.gatech.edu

Directions & Parking Information

Dr. Rakesh Kumar

The role of polymers in the electronics and medical arenas, particularly in miniaturized devices and electronic components, continues to grow rapidly. As the number of medical devices and electronics are growing to enhance human life, the challenges to make them safe, effective, and to find protection solutions for components are also increasing. For a number of years, conformal coatings have offered a level of protection to components, but many simply do not offer the level that is required for today and tomorrow's complex technologies.

This presentation will provide an overview of recent advances in Parylene technologies, including microRESIST® Antimicrobial Parylene Technology, and will discuss how currently available Parylenes differentiate themselves from other available conformal coating and polymeric materials. This presentation will address the latest advances in adhesion technologies and Parylene's role in nano- and micro- technologies. Examples of applications that have benefited from the properties of Parylene include circuit card assemblies, MEMS, LEDs, sensors, lab-on- a-chip devices, pacemakers, stents, electrosurgical tools, cochlear implants, neurostimulation devices and elastomers.

As applications and materials continue to evolve, Parylenes, used as conformal coatings as well as structural materials, enhance the performance and reliability of critical components and devices.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Rakesh Kumar is currently the Vice President of Technology for Specialty Coating Systems, Inc., overseeing Parylene R&D activities worldwide. With more than 27 years of extensive experience in polymeric materials, Dr. Kumar is currently involved with the application of Parylenes in the fields of medical devices, electronics, MEMS, sensors and nanotechnology. Dr. Kumar earned his doctoral degrees in Chemistry from India, and completed his post-doctorate work at the University College London, United Kingdom. He is co-author of a book and has authored several published papers and patents.

The Future of Higher Education and Georgia Tech
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Student Center Theater
Guest speaker: Provost Rafael L. Bras

Research Priorities and Funding Opportunities in the New Federal Administration  
Thursday, March 16, 2017
11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Ferst Center Lobby
Guest speakers: Dr. Steve Cross, executive vice president for Research and Mr. Robert Knotts, director of Federal Relations

Advancing Tech's Physical and Workplace Capabilities: A Plan to Build a Resilient Campus
Thursday, April 6, 2017
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Seminar Room, EBB
Guest speaker: Mr. Steve Swant, executive vice president for Administration and Finance

Have a question? In addition to questions asked at the event, questions will be accepted in advance. Note that all questions must be received at least 24 hours in advance and will be answered during the event as time allows.

Submit a question

• Part One: Introduction (including patentability requirements, identification of patent documents, patent classifications and patent search strategies)
• Part Two: Hands-on practice (covering classification search using USPTO's PatFT/AppFT, and EPO's Espacenet; Hybrid search using classification and keywords)

Prerequisites: Preview the 7-Step patent search strategy video by the USPTO before coming to class

For more information, please email: patentscoordinator@library.gatech.edu

Directions & Parking Information

Hey students, faculty, or anyone interested in hacking for a good cause,

Do you have expertise in coding front-end or back-end systems, designing interfaces or devices, working with older adults, or are you business savvy? Join us for the LeadingAge Georgia HackFest, March 24-26th, 2017. It is a great opportunity to work with people from other disciplines in the domains of aging and technology and to produce some cool innovative solutions that will benefit the future of aging. 

REGISTER TODAY! $35 will save your spot (refundable when you show up to participate)

Event Details

Innovation often comes from unexpected places! Ideas that change the future of aging are just the kind of thing that we are looking for at the 2017 LeadingAge Georgia HackFest. Not your typical hackathon, HackFest is focused on creating technology to address the challenges of aging.

The LeadingAge GA Hackfest Pre-qualifying event will be held at Canterbury Court Continuing Care Retirement Community, a senior living community located in Buckhead-Atlanta, GA from Friday, March 24 until Sunday, March 26. 

• Friday , March 24: 6pm - 8pm :: Join us for a networking meet up to meet your team
• Saturday, March 25: 8am - Sunday 10am: Hack Main Event
• Sunday, March 26: 10am - 2:30pm: Team Presentations and Winners

Who should Register

Like most hacking events, we’re looking for: Front-End & Back-End Developers; HOWEVER, unlike most hacking events, we also want:

• Designers • Marketers • Gerontologists • Aging Services Professionals • Business Experts • Clinicians • Elders/Consumers … or anyone passionate about the field of aging!

Teams

Make your own team or we will help you join a team. A major goal of HackFest is to create teams of people with a variety of skills and knowledge to develop a tool (an app, website, interactive online experience or device) that addresses the challenges of aging. 

Judging and Next 

These tools will be judged by a panel of experts on originality, usability, feasibility, design relevance, and on being the “most developed” by the end of the HackFest session. 

Winning teams will win cash prizes and the first place team will win airfare, hotel accommodations and conference access to compete nationally in the 2017 LeadingAge Annual Meeting & EXPO in New Orleans, LA from October 29 - November 1, 2017.

Additional Project Feedback

All teams are invited to participate in the Monday, March 27, 2017 State of Science (SoS) Expo | TechSage event to Exhibit from 4-8 p.m. (two contestants from each team should be present; however, all are invited) – This is an ideal opportunity for the winning team to get feedback prior to the national competition.

REGISTER for LeadingAge Georgia HackFest TODAY! $35 will save your spot (refundable when you show up to participate) 

Hosted By

LeadingAge Georgia

Canterbury Court

Georgia Tech Aware Home

Georgia Tech Tools for Life

Wireless RERC

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Tianxin Tang on Mar. 3, 2017

"Keyless Fuzzy Search for Data-based Access Control"

ABSTRACT   |   Key management is always problematic in terms of privacy for remotely stored data in a de-centralized environment. To alleviate this issue, we propose a concept called "keyless fuzzy search," where users can query an encrypted database, retrieve its parts and decrypt only some information "close to" the encrypted data. While strong security in such a keyless setting is impossible to achieve, our approach prohibits remote encrypted data from easily being massively harvested or mined, because guessing the right queries can be costly for attackers if the data has some entropy.

BIO   |   Tianxin Tang is a second-year Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science. Her research interest lies in cryptography, more specifically in provable security. Her current projects are related to searchable encryption.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Shan Chen on Mar. 10, 2017

"Human Computing for Handling Strong Corruptions in Authenticated Key Exchange"

RSVP

ABSTRACT   |   Ph.D. Student Shan Chen presents user authentication and key exchange protocols that can tolerate strong corruptions on the client-side. He will define the security model for Human Authenticated Key Exchange (HAKE) protocols and propose two generic protocols based on human-compatible (HC) functions, password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE), commitment, and authenticated encryption. Chen will prove that HAKE protocols can remain secure under reasonable assumptions and will discuss efficient instantiations. He'll also propose a variant where users get help from a small device such as RSA SecurID. This allows implementation of an HC function with stronger security and weakens required assumptions on the PAKE. Overall, this leads to the very efficient HAKE, which can withstand strong corruptions.

BIO   |   Shan Chen is a Ph.D. student in the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of cryptography and applied cryptography.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring David Formby on Mar. 17, 2017

"Out of Control: Ransomware for Industrial Control Systems" 

RSVP

ABSTRACT   |   Ransomware has recently emerged as the trending new business model for cybercrime with high-profile attacks on hospitals, revealing how profitable the technique can be when used to hold operationally critical assets for ransom. Meanwhile, industrial control system (ICS) networks are still struggling to update their security practices due to the perceived absence of threats and rarity of real-world ICS attacks. Recent reports suggest that ICS networks may be the next domain that ransomware is targeting but, to date, all attacks have simply used standard ransomware against personal computers with limited effect. In this work, we develop the first known version of ransomware that targets programmable logic controllers, discuss the economic implications of such an attack, and lay out a generic framework for ICS ransomware to aid in future study and defenses.

BIO   |   David Formby is a Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, performing research in the area of network security for industrial control systems under Dr. Raheem Beyah. His past and current research projects include network characterizations of power distribution substations, techniques for device type fingerprinting for cyber-physical systems, and tools to detect and analyze changes to industrial controller programming.

Learn more

Stay up-to-date at the Facebook event page.

EVENT SCHEDULE

Week Long Scavenger Hunt

Think you have what it takes to solve all the clues? Think you can do it the fastest? Then sign up below for a week long engineering themed scavenger hunt! The winning team will receive a $50 prize and tickets to the InVenture Prize competition. There's no team size limit. For full participation, sign up by March 7th!
http://bit.ly/2mbOfKB

Wednesday 3/8

E Week Night at the Observatory

Join Dr. James Sowell for a private observatory night. Sign up for tickets here: 
7:30 - 8:00 http://bit.ly/2lXXIF6
8:00 - 8:30 http://bit.ly/2kWHGah
8:30 - 9:00 http://bit.ly/2lwDKjC

Thursday 3/9

Paper Airplane Competition

We will be launching paper airplanes from the bridge between the College of Computing and Klaus from 5 - 7 PM. All supplies will be provided and the winner, as decided by longest throw, will receive a small prize!

Friday 3/10 

Pictures with the Reck

The Reck will be by the Einstein statue from 11am-1pm. Come take some pictures with Einstein themed props provided.

Saturday 3/11

Future Tech 2017 / AE Day

Future Tech 2017 is an event designed to advertise STEM to younger students. For more information and to find out about volunteering opportunities, visit their website: http://b.gatech.edu/2mbThGZ

Airport Fun Day, 9:00am – 5:00pm

Location: DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (PDK)

Every semester the Yellow Jacket Flying Club has a community outreach event called Airport Fun Day (AFD) where they provide 30-minute rides to GT and non-GT students, introduce elementary school students to flying, have static displays of interesting aircraft (including a jet!), helicopter training platforms, flight simulator, and cookout. This is a great opportunity to meet experts of aviation in the local vicinity and expand your network.

Sunday 3/12

Tau Beta Pi Mile

Join us for a 3.14 mile run through campus and get a free slice of pie on Pi Day for participating. Check-ins begin at 9:30am and the race will start at 10am. Please RSVP on the link below and sign the waiver.
Race Registration: http://bit.ly/2kBCJaY

Monday 3/13

Undergraduate Research Poster Session

5 – 7 p.m.

This is an opportunity for undergraduate researchers to practice presenting a research poster and gain valuable feedback from graduate students and postdocs. Whether you simply want to gain experience or use this as an opportunity to prepare for future events, such as the spring symposium, we highly recommend you sign-up to present. All you need to do is fill out the registration form and have your poster ready to go on March 13th! Be sure to sign up quickly as space is limited (limited to the first 50 students).

Deadline to register is March 6th.

Registration form: https://goo.gl/forms/99B523vWs05m8TTs1 

Tuesday 3/14

Free Pies for Pi Mile Runners

If you participate in the Pi Mile race on Sunday, come grab your Pi day free slice of pie! 11am-1pm

Wednesday 3/15

Inventure Prize Finals

At the end of E Week, help cheer on some of Tech's most talented students participating in the 2017 InVenture Prize finals at 7:30 p.m. at the Ferst Center for the Arts.
http://b.gatech.edu/2l3MM3K

Prof. Eric Freeman
College of Engineering, University of Georgia

ABSTRACT: Biologically inspired materials attempt to replicate the elegant engineering solutions observed in the natural world.  Observing that many of these solutions are multiscale hierarchical structures comprised of nature’s building block, the cell, a new class of stimuli-responsive materials is proposed based on cellular capabilities.  While fully replicating cellular functionality is well beyond the scope of any laboratory, we examine this concept through the creation of synthetic cellular membranes in complex arrangements, combining emulsions, interfacial chemistry, and digital microfluidics.  This envisioned material platform has been successfully applied towards the creation of biological sensors, actuators and energy harvesters, but there is ample room for improvement in the concept.  This presentation focuses on better understanding the underlying mechanics of the membrane networks in order to improve their stability, durability, and reliability in non-laboratory environments, promoting their adoption as novel engineering materials.  This is accomplished by investigating new methods for solidifying the networks, creating models for their behavior under mechanical constraints, and investigating non-contact methods for their manipulation.

BIO: Eric Freeman is currently an assistant professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia.  He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 2012, then worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Biomolecular Materials and Systems group at Virginia Tech for two years before joining the faculty at UGA.  He is an active member of the biologically inspired smart materials community, and combines computational and mathematical modeling with experimental validation in his interdisciplinary research.

Join us to hear from two serial entrepreneurs who are surviving and thriving in academia.

• Tiffany Wilson, CEO, Global Center for Medical Innovation
• Sherry Farrugia, COO, Pediatric Technology Center

Please note: Bring a brown bag lunch.

Register to attend.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Jim Plusquellic on April 21, 2017

Dr. James (Jim) Plusquellic is professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of New Mexico, co-founder of the International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), and director of the Integrated Circuit Hardware Analysis Laboratory (IC-HAL).

RSVP

Hardware-Based Security and Trust For IoT and Supply Chain Authentication

ABSTRACT    |    New hardware architectures for Internet-of-Things (IoT) are emerging rapidly in response to consumer demands for improved situational awareness, instant access to widely distributed sources of news and information and remote, hand-held control over their personal assets.  The most important component of IoT relates to authentication, i.e., confirming the identities of communicating entities, but weak 'password' forms of authentication continue to dominate the IoT landscape. This presentation discusses the challenges associated with authentication in IoT environments and emerging hardware-based solutions based on physical unclonable functions (PUFs). PUFs are capable of generating unique identifiers for each chip by leveraging small performance differences introduced by manufacturing process variations. PUFs are particularly attractive for IoT because they are lightweight, eliminate the need for secure non-volatile memory, and for a special class of so-called strong PUFs, are able to generate virtually an unlimited number of unique, reproducible bitstrings. I will describe recent results and carry out a hardware demonstration of a Hardware-Embedded delay PUF called HELP using a set Xilinx SoC chips.

BIO    |    Dr. Jim Plusquellic is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of New Mexico, chief technology officer for Enthentica Inc., and president and chief executive officer for Trusted and Secure Systems. His research interests are in the area of nano-scale VLSI and include security and trust in IC hardware, embedded system design, supply chain and IoT security and trust, silicon validation, design for manufacturability and delay test methods.

Dr. Plusquellic received an "Outstanding Contribution Award" from IEEE Computer Society in 2012 for co-founding and for his contributions to the Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST). He served as General Chair for HOST in 2010, for the Defect-Based Testing Workshop in 2006 and as Associate Editor for Transactions on Computers. He received the "10 Years of Continuous Service Award" from the International Test Conference, a Best Paper Award from VTS, an ACM Distinguished Service Award from SIGDA and two Austin CAS Fellow Awards from IBM. He received the "Albuquerque lab-to-business accelerator" award in 2016, the "2014 Innovation Award" from the Science and Technology Center at the University of New Mexico, was a "Featured Entrepreneur" within the School of Engineering and has multiple patents and provisional applications filed with the US. Patent and Trademark Office. Professor Plusquellic is serving or has served on the Program Committees for HOST, Design and Test in Europe, International Test Conference, International Conference on Computer-Aided Design and VLSI Test Symposium.

He received both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and has published more than 70 refereed conference and journal papers. He is a Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society and a member of the IEEE.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Yanick Fratantonio on Apr. 7, 2017

"Cloak & Dagger: From Two Android Permissions to Complete Control of the UI Feedback Loop"

RSVP

ABSTRACT   |   Although the two Android permissions -- SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW and BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE -- have been separately abused to create redressing attacks and accessibility attacks, these previous cyberattacks never could completely control the user interface (UI) feedback loop. (They either relied on vanishing side-channels to time the appearance of overlay UI, could not respond properly to user input, or made the attacks literally visible.)
 
In this work, we demonstrate how combining the capabilities of these permissions can create a devastating and stealthy new cyberattack on Android devices that grants the adversary complete control of the UI feedback loop. In particular, we demonstrate how an app with the above permissions can launch a variety of powerful attacks -- ranging from stealing user’s login credentials and security PIN, to the silent installation of a God-like app with all permissions enabled. To make things even worse, we found that the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission is automatically granted for apps installed from the Play Store and, even though the BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE is not automatically granted, our experiment shows that it is very easy to lure users to unknowingly grant that permission. As such, a user may never notice that a malicious app installed on his/her device is using these two permissions, and thus never suspects the app of carrying out the Cloak & Dagger attack. We also found that it is simple and straightforward to get a proof-of-concept app that allows both permissions into the official Android store.
 
We evaluated the practicality of these attacks by performing a user study: none of the 20 human subjects that took part of the experiment even suspected they had been attacked. We conclude with a number of observations and best-practices that can help Google app developers to better secure the Android graphical user interface.
 
BIO  |   Yanick Fratantonio is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who plans to join EURECOM as an Assistant Professor upon graduation. His research focuses on mobile systems security and privacy. His research interest is to keep users of mobile devices safe, and his work spans different areas of mobile security, such as malware detection, vulnerability analysis, characterization of emerging threats, and the development of novel practical protection mechanisms. In his free time, he enjoys playing and organizing capture-the-flag competitions with the Shellphish hacking team at UCSB.
 
The work to be presented started as Fratantonio’s summer project when he interned with the Institute for Information Security & Privacy at Georgia Tech in Summer 2016. The subsequent paper detailing this work has been accepted by, and will be presented at, the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy in May 2017.

The Cybersecurity Lecture Series is a free, open-to-the-public lecture from a thought leader who is advancing the field of information security and privacy. Invited speakers include executives and researchers from private companies, government agencies, start-up incubators as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students presenting their research.

Held weekly each Friday at Noon through Apr. 21, lectures are open to all -- students, faculty, industry, government, or simply the curious. Graduate students may register for credit under seminar course CS-8001-INF.

Complimentary lunch provided for registered guests. Please bring your own beverage.

Sign up to receive future lecture announcements.

Featuring Bharat Srinivasan on March 31, 2017

"Exposing Cross-Channel Abuse in Converged Communications Infrastructure with Text-Messaging Scams"

ABSTRACT  |  Recent convergence of the Internet with the telecommunications infrastructure offers malicious actors the ability to craft cross-channel attacks that leverage both telephony and Internet resources. In this talk, we first the introduce the notion of cross-channel abuse and explain why it’s an emerging tactic used by fraudsters. We then present a longitudinal study of the support infrastructure aiding cross-channel text-messaging abuse which reveals interesting insights on domain and IP infrastructure used in text messaging scams, spam and phishing attacks. We conclude with a brief overview of other cross-channel abuse cases such as technical support scams.

BIO  |   Bharat Srinivasan is a final-year Ph.D. student with the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. His Ph.D. thesis focuses on identifying and addressing emerging threats in the security of converged communications and critical infrastructure. He has previously worked with security teams at research labs, large corporations and startups including Microsoft Research, IBM Research, Pindrop, Twilio and Salesforce.com.

RSVP

Professor Dennis Hess Ph.D., School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract: Fabrication of devices and structures for integrated circuits, sensors, photonics, and MEMS/NEMS requires layers of patterned thin films. For nearly all film materials, patterns are generated by lithographic processes, followed by plasma etching. Plasmas or glow discharges are ionized gases that contain electrons, ions, neutral species and photons that promote chemical reactions and ensure that anisotropic etch profiles can be obtained. This tutorial will discuss the fundamental physics and chemistry of plasmas, plasma reactor configurations, unique properties of plasmas that allow thin film processing for a variety of applications, and approaches to control etch rates, profiles, and etch selectivity.

Biography: Dennis W. Hess is the Thomas C. DeLoach Jr., Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include thin films, surfaces, and interfaces, especially as applied to microelectronics and polymer processing. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from Albright College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physical Chemistry from Lehigh University. He was a Member of the Research Staff and Supervisor of Process Development at Fairchild Semiconductor from 1973 to 1977. From 1977 to 1991 he was a faculty member in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also served as Assistant Dean, College of Chemistry (1982-1987) and Vice Chair, ChE Department (1988-1991). From 1991-1996, he served as Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department at Lehigh University. He joined the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech in 1996.

Since April 2007, the Georgia Tech Observatory has offered stargazers a close-up glimpse of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and other night-sky wonders. Originally intended to build interest in astronomy among undergrads, the observatory has become one of the most popular Georgia Tech sites to visit. Public Nights are held on a Thursday evening during most months. Community groups are frequent visitors.

Located on the roof of the Howey Physics Building, the observatory is essential in the teaching and learning of astronomy and is in constant use during the academic year by students.

The observatory's telescopes include a 20-inch Officina Stellare and a 14-inch Meade.

HOW STAR TREK CHANGED EVERYTHING

A public lecture by Glenn Burns
Chief meteorologist, WSB-TV

The destination for the 1960s Apollo missions was the Moon, but the premiere of Star Trek in 1966 got the nation thinking about possibilities  beyond our Solar System. What about other galaxies, alien life, faster-than-light travel?

Glenn Burns, WSB-TV’s chief meteorologist, will discuss how a unique blend of science fact and science fiction inspires generations of astronomers. 

Burns has been with WSB-TV since 1981 and has won numerous awards, including  Associated Press Weathercaster of the Year. 

April 6, 2017, 7:30-8:30 PM
Room 152, Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, 266 Fourth St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30314

A MAGICAL UNIVERSE TOUR: PLANETARIUM AT CLOUGH 
Hosted by Philip Groce
Planetarium design consultant

Stargazers will enter a 20-foot-diameter, high-resolution planetarium installed in the Clough Atrium. Groce, president of Helping Planetariums Succeed, will take you on a tour of the known universe and preview the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017.

April 6, 2017, 9:30 AM to Noon, 1-5 PM
Atrium, Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, 266 Fourth St. NW Atlanta, GA 30314

PUBLIC NIGHT AT THE OBSERVATORY
Hosted by James Sowell 
Director, Georgia Tech Observatory

Weather permitting, Georgia Tech rolls back the roof on the observatory on top of the Howey Physics Building.

April 6, 2017, 8-11 PM
Howey Physics Building, 837 State St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30332 

Organizers: Carl DiSalvo (Georgia Tech), Nick Feamster (Princeton), Janet Vertesi (Princeton), Seda Gurses (Princeton / Leuven)

Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) is hosting a workshop that explores the security and privacy concerns that arise from Internet-connected devices in smart homes and cities. 

For this workshop they are soliciting teams of computer scientists, engineers, designers, artists, legal scholars, and social theorists to come together and design systems that can provide users with more visibility into and control over the behavior of the devices that they connect to their networks, ultimately giving people more agency over these devices. Existing efforts to improve IoT privacy and security have begun to explore ways to visualize and control data flows from these devices, but many of these designs could be informed by insights from architects, designers, and sociologists as well as critical theories of design. The workshop plans to bring people together from these diverse knowledge bases to enrich and enhance existing approaches to security and privacy in smart homes and cities.

More information

The destination for the 1960s Apollo missions was the Moon, but the premiere of Star Trek in 1966 got the nation thinking about possibilities  beyond our Solar System. What about other galaxies, alien life, faster-than-light travel?

Glenn Burns, WSB-TV’s chief meteorologist, will discuss how a unique blend of science fact and science fiction inspires generations of astronomers. 

Burns has been with WSB-TV since 1981 and has won numerous awards, including  Associated Press Weathercaster of the Year. 

3:00 PM - 3:45PM  Prof. Patricio Vela will give a talk  on

    Revisiting Averaging Theory for Control of Biologically Inspired Robots

3:45PM -- 4:00PM Break with Discussions

4:00PM - 4:45PM  The second talk will be given by Alexander H. Chang on

           Modeling and Control of Robotic Snakes

4:45PM - 5PM Discussion of open problems stemming from the presentations.

First Talk Title: Revisiting Averaging Theory for Control of Biologically Inspired Robots

Abstract: Robotic locomotive mechanisms designed to mimic those of their biological counterparts differ from traditionally engineered systems. Though both require overcoming non-holonomic properties of the interaction dynamics, the nature of their non-holonomy differs.  Traditionally engineered systems have more direct actuation, in the sense that control signals directly lead to generated forces or torques, as in the case of rotors, wheels, motors, jets/ducted fans, etc. In contrast, the body/environment interactions that animals exploit induce forces  or torque that may not always align with their intended direction vector.Through periodic shape change animals are able to effect an overall force or torque in the desired direction. Deriving control equations for this class of robotic systems requires modelling the periodic interaction forces, then  applying averaging theory to arrive at autonomous nonlinear control models whose form and structure resembles that of traditionally engineered systems. Once obtained, classical nonlinear control methods may be applied, though some  attention is required since the control can no longer apply at arbitrary  time scales.The talk will cover the fundamentals of averaging theory and efforts to identify a generalized averaging strategy capable of recovering the desired control equations. Importantly, the strategy reverses the typical approach to averaged expansions, which significantly simplifies the procedure. Doing so  provides insights into feedback control strategies available for systems controlled through time-periodic signals.

Second Talk Title: Modeling and Control of Robotic Snakes

Speaker: Alexander H. Chang (GT ECE)

Abstract: Robotic snakes have the potential to navigate areas or environments that would be more challenging for traditionally engineered robots. To realize their potential requires deriving feedback control and path planning algorithms applicable to the diverse gait modalities possible. In turn, this requires equations of motion for snake movement that generalize across the gait types and their interaction dynamics. This talk will discuss efforts towards both obtaining general control equations for snake robots, and controlling them along planned trajectories. We model three-dimensional time- and spatially-varying locomotion gaits, utilized by snake-like robots, as planar continuous body curves. In so doing, quantities relevant to computing system dynamics are expressed conveniently and geometrically with respect to the planar body, thereby facilitating derivation of governing equations of motion. Simulations using the derived dynamics characterize the averaged, steady-behavior as a function of the gait parameters. These then inform an optimal trajectory planner tasked to generate viable paths through obstacle-strewn terrain. Discrete-time feedback control successfully guides the snake-like robot along the planned paths.

BIO:  Prof. Patricio Vela was born in Mexico City, Mexico and grew up in California. He earned his bachelor of science degree in 1998 and his doctorate in 2003 at the California Institute of Technology, where he did his graduate research on geometric nonlinear control and robotics. Dr. Vela came to Georgia Tech as a post-doctoral researcher in computer vision and joined the ECE faculty in 2005.

Information security students at Georgia Tech compete before venture capitalists and industry leaders at the Institute for Information Security & Privacy's "Demo Day Finale."  Five student teams will present TED-style talks about their research before an elite panel of business leaders, who then advise students about future considerations for commercialization. Research with the best chance of commercialization or demonstrating the most impact toward resolving an industry need receives a cash prize.

RSVP to Attend

Initial cybersecurity research concepts were presented at the Fall Demo Day, held Sept. 28, 2016 at the Georgia Tech Cyber Security Summit and were selected by audience vote to continue to the Finale.

Finalists are

Rob Callan and Farnaz Behrang, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering
"Malware Detection Using Unintentional Electromagnetic Emanations"

Advisor(s): Alenka Zajic and Alessandro Orso

David Formby, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering
"Under Control: Techniques for Securing Industrial Control Systems"

Advisor: Raheem Beyah

Marie Le Pichon, School of Computer Science
"Requirements Identification for IRB Protocols: The Challenges of Ubiquitous Computing and the Emergent Properties of Big Data"

Advisor: Annie Anton

Alireza Nazari and Nader Sehatbakhsh, School of Computer Science
"Spectral Profiling & Monitoring: An Observer-effect-free Method for Profiling and Dynamic Malware Detection"

Advisors: Milos Prvulovic and Alenka Zajic

Tianxin Tang, School of Computer Science
"Keyless Fuzzy Search for Data-based Access Control

Advisor: Alexandra Boldyreva

The competition is for current Georgia Tech students and recent alumni who have early stage product/service ideas or venture concepts that are geared towards creating a better world through students who Dare to Care. Entries might focus on reducing poverty, alleviating hunger, promoting health and wellness, improving air and water quality, reducing of the rate of depletion of natural resources, or developing alternate sources of energy…just to name a few!

Finalists will pitch their plan and answer questions about their idea/product to the public and judges from Atlanta's entrepreneurial community.  Prizes will be awarded to the Winner and Runner up, Best Poster, Video and People's Choice Award. 

Interested in attending? RSVP on Facebook!

Visit our website or contact Dori Pap for more information.

The Ideas 2 Serve Finals are made possible due to the contributions of the following sponsors:

• Gray Ghost Ventures
• Georgia Tech LEAD Program
• Georgia Tech Innovation and Design Collaborative
• Cecil B. Day Program for Business Ethics
• Steven A. Denning Technology and Management Program
• Speechworks
• Tedd Munchak Chair in Entrepreneurship
• The Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain
• The Engineering for Social Innovation Center
• The Global Development Program @ The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Covenant Presbyterian Churh

• Students may apply to present either a poster presentation or an oral presentation.
• Undergraduate students can present either individually or as a team, and a team presentation may have a maximum of six students participating.
• Only currently-enrolled undergraduate students are allowed to present at the symposium. Graduate students, post-docs, and faculty are not permitted to present and should not be included on the application. 
• Applications are accepted on a first come, first served basis. The faculty mentor listed on the application must be associated with a school or department at Georgia Tech.

HOW TO APPLY

• A student must complete the online application form in order to apply to present at the symposium. A short abstract (max. 250 words) of your research is required as part of the application. 
• For multiple students interested in co-presenting, please note that only one application should be submitted per team.
• Application Deadline is March 10, 2017.  Accepted applicants will receive additional details on their participation in early April, and oral presenters will also be notified of their presentation time slot and room number.

Machelle Pardue, Ph.D.
Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech/Emory University

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of blindness in working age adults. DR is clinically diagnosed by late stage vascular changes in the retina. Detecting early stage retinopathy prior to the onset of these clinical findings would greatly impact the management and treatment of DR. We have identified several tests that show dysfunction in the retina prior to the onset of vascular lesions induced by diabetes. Using novel stimuli with the electroretinogram, we have determined that rod photoreceptor function is most vulnerable to diabetes. Our studies show similar delays in rodent models of diabetes and diabetic patients, prior to clinically diagnosed DR, suggesting a potential screening tool. In addition, we have shown that spatial frequency and contrast sensitivity thresholds decline prior to vascular changes when tested with moving gratings. Finally, we have demonstrated the application of reactive fluorescent tags to detect reactive oxygen species in the retina, providing another possible screening tool for DR. The detection of early stage DR opens a therapeutic window for neuroprotective agents that could slow or halt the progression of disease. We have demonstrated that L-DOPA or exercise treatments are promising interventions to slow the progression of DR and preserve visual function.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

Chethan Pandarinath, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Georgia Tech/Emory University

Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) aim to restore function for people with disabilities by directly interfacing with the nervous system. A key challenge in advancing these systems is developing frameworks to accurately estimate and perturb the state of the brain in real-time. I will demonstrate the development and application of such frameworks to an intracortical motor prosthesis for people with paralysis. As part of the BrainGate2 pilot clinical trial, we developed advances in neural signal processing, systems design, and algorithms and demonstrated the highest performance 2-dimensional control (Gilja*, Pandarinath* et al., Nature Medicine 2015) and communications rates (Pandarinath*, Nuyujukian* et al., eLife 2017) ever achieved by people with paralysis controlling a BMI. Moving forward, I will highlight ongoing work to precisely understand the dynamics of neural population activity, based around deep learning approaches (Sussillo et al., arXiv 2016), that can dramatically increase our ability to extract information and intention from populations of neurons in the brain. The insights gained from these studies motivate interdisciplinary approaches towards the control of complex end effectors (e.g., dextrous robotic arms) that leverage innovations across neuroengineering and systems neuroscience.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

Abstract: Never before in history data is generated and collected at such high volumes as it is today. For the analysis of large data sets to be effective, it is important to include the human in the data exploration process and combine the flexibility, creativity, and general knowledge of the human with the enormous storage capacity and the computational power of today's computers. Visual Analytics helps to deal with the flood of information by integrating the human in the data analysis process. Presenting data in an interactive, graphical form often fosters new insights, encouraging the formation and validation of new hypotheses for better problem-solving and gaining deeper domain knowledge. Visual analytics techniques have proven to be of high value in exploratory data analysis. They are especially powerful for the first steps of the data exploration process, namely understanding the data and generating hypotheses about the data, but they also significantly contribute to the actual knowledge discovery by guiding the search using visual feedback. In putting visual analysis to work on big data, it is not obvious what can be done by automated analysis and what should be done by interactive visual methods. In dealing with massive data, the use of automated methods is mandatory - and for some problems it may be sufficient to only use fully automated analysis methods, but there is also a wide range of problems where the use of interactive visual methods is necessary. The presentation discusses when it is useful to combine visualization and analytics techniques and it will also discuss the options how to combine techniques from both areas. Examples from a wide range of application areas illustrate the benefits of visual analytics techniques.

Bio: Daniel A. Keim is professor and head of the Information Visualization and Data Analysis Research Group in the Computer Science Department of the University of Konstanz, Germany. He has been actively involved in data analysis and information visualization research for more than 20 years and developed a number of novel visual analysis techniques for very large data sets. He has been program co-chair of the IEEE InfoVis and IEEE VAST as well as the ACM SIGKDD conference, and he is chair of the IEEE VAST steering committee. He has been coordinator of the German Science Foundation funded Strategic Research Initiative (Schwerpunktprogramm) "Scalable Visual Analytics" and scientific coordinator of the European Commission funded Coordination Action "Visual Analytics - Mastering the Information Age (VisMaster)". Dr. Keim got his Ph.D. and habilitation degrees in computer science from the University of Munich. Before joining the University of Konstanz, Dr. Keim was associate professor at the University of Halle, Germany and Senior Technology Consultant at AT&T Shannon Research Labs, NJ, USA.

Prof. A. Fatih Sarioglu
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract: Microfluidic devices are extremely attractive for the analysis of biological samples as they offer unique capabilities from localized and deterministic bio-particle manipulation to integration with highly sensitive micromachined sensors/actuators. In fact, numerous biophysical and biochemical assays rely on differential manipulation of suspended bioparticles such as cells, viruses or proteins as they are processed on lab-on-a-chip devices. However, these devices typically lack on-chip readout, and therefore, the analysis of fractionated particles on these devices requires microscopy or other benchtop instruments, negating the cost and size advantages of microfluidic assays. In this talk, I will introduce our recent work on a scalable electronic sensor technology, named Microfluidic CODES, that utilizes resistive pulse sensing (i.e., Coulter principle) to track particles as they are processed on a microfluidic chip. Microfluidic CODES combines code-division multiplexing commonly used in CDMA cell phone networks with microfluidics and microfabrication to create an integrated micro-sensor network that can be used to spatiotemporally track particles on a microfluidic device. I will talk about the design and operating principles of the Microfluidic CODES technology, and specifically present the theoretical analysis of the system, computational tools developed for signal processing and experimental results on human tumor cells using prototype devices.

Bio: A. Fatih Sarioglu received the B.Sc. degree from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey in 2003, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 2005 and 2010, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Stanford University and later as a research fellow in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In October 2014, he joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor. His research interests are in developing nano- and micro-systems technologies for biomedical applications such as cancer detection, cellular and biomolecular analysis, point-of-care diagnostics and minimally invasive health monitoring.

• Part One: Introduction (including patentability requirements, identification of patent documents, patent classifications and patent search strategies)
• Part Two: Hands-on practice (covering classification search using USPTO's PatFT/AppFT, and EPO's Espacenet; Hybrid search using classification and keywords)

Prerequisites: Preview the 7-Step patent search strategy video by the USPTO before coming to class

For more information, please email: patentscoordinator@library.gatech.edu

Directions & Parking Information

Open to all, and light snacks and refreshments will be provided. See you there!

RSVP here.

Solar Partnerships: Delivering Meaningful Community Legacies

Luke focuses on project origination with specific focus on managing projects through all of the different aspects of a project’s development lifecycle, from concept to completion. Responsibilities include creating opportunities in new markets, finding and acquiring land for speculative projects and developed projects, providing the development group with project financial analysis, and general marketing outreach and services. Luke helped develop the first utility scale project with Georgia Power in Social Circle and was the lead developer on the Hazlehurst projects totaling 100 MWac. Before working for Silicon Ranch he spent three years working for MSCI as a social responsibility investment energy analyst. He earned an MBA with a focus in sustainability management from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management and his Bachelor’s in Public Policy from Duke University.

Please RSVP here.

The Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business was founded in 2013 to act as a catalyst and connector, bringing together students, research faculty, companies, and entrepreneurs to create an environment where business-driven solutions to sustainability challenges can take shape and thrive. In all, Scheller provides students unparalleled breadth in environmental sustainability, ethics, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and values-based leadership. The Energy Club at Georgia Tech seeks to inspire and prepare the next generation of individuals knowledgeable in the complex interaction energy-related world. We strive to bring together the technology, policy and business of the energy landscape to better understand the issues and contribute to the dialogue. We offer a great opportunity to get involved and network with many influential energy leaders on campus and across the country. The interdisciplinary nature of the topic ensures that there is something for everyone in the club. We cater to all majors and both graduate and undergraduate students.

About the GTMI Manufacturing Luncheon Seminars

Who: All students, industry partners, faculty and staff are invited. Registration is not required. A light lunch will be served. Free.

When/Where: Session begins at 12 p.m. at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, Room 114

About the Speaker:

Devin Brown has been with Georgia Tech since 2002. His research interests include nanotechnology fabrication research and development, and process development and management of $6M JEOL JBX-9300FS 100kV direct write electron beam lithography system. Brown has achieved 6.5nm resolution in hydrogen silsesquioxane negative electron beam resist

Steve Finkbeiner, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Neurology
University of California, San Francisco

Clinical trial failure rates for neurological diseases are some of the highest of any indication (~93%), despite showing promise in preclinical disease models. The poor predictive power of preclinical models is a major obstacle to therapeutics development.

To improve matters, we developed an array of human brain cell models differentiated from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which exhibit disease-associated phenotypes. To fully harness these models to understand mechanisms of disease and screen for therapeutics, we developed systems to perform high throughput longitudinal single cell imaging and analysis, called robotic microscopes. Automated programs find cells within the images and track them longitudinally increasing the sensitivity of screens 2-to-3 orders of magnitude compared with conventional approaches. To expand the power of the platform, we are developing an array of over 270 biosensors that report a variety of biological structures and functions from cells and circuits. Increasingly, deep learning approaches are used to extract features from images, enabling us to achieve super human performance in some cases. We also are using family-based whole genome analysis of patients with neurodegenerative diseases to find new targets and validate then in patient derived human brain cell models. Observational studies in a model of one neurodegenerative disease made it possible to unravel complex cause-and-effect relationships and to identify the autophagy protein clearance pathway as a potential therapeutic target. We then launched a small molecule discovery and development effort that led to brain penetrant orally available autophagy inducers that mitigate disease phenotypes in our human neuron models of neurodegenerative disease. Combining robotic microscopy, biosensors and deep learning, it is becoming possible to develop dynamic predictive models of cell fate at a single cell level that serve as blueprints for therapeutic strategies.

This presentation can be seen via videoconference on the Emory Campus HSRB E160

Bio-sketch

Dr. Finkbeiner is a Director at the J. David Gladstone Institutes, Director of the Taube/Koret Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, and is a Professor of Neurology and Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1986 Dr. Finkbeiner earned a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College. He earned both an MD and a PhD in neuroscience from Yale University in 1991. He completed an internship in internal medicine and chief residency in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Work in his academic research laboratory has focused on studying the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for learning, memory and neurodegeneration. A better understanding of these mechanisms will yield insights into the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and the memory disorders that often characterize them. A major focus of his work in the area of neurodegenerative disease has been the role of protein dyshomeostasis in HD, PD, ALS, and FTD. In this context, he has developed a unique fully automated high throughput single cell analysis platform called robotic microscopy that provides very sensitive measures of phenotypes. This technology has been used to discover disease-related phenotypes in differentiated neurons from patients with neurodegenerative diseases to better understand mechanisms of disease and to find and develop therapeutic strategies. Dr. Finkbeiner has received numerous awards for his work, including the Lieberman Award, the Taube/Koret Prize, the Award for Outstanding Research Achievement from Nature Biotechnology, and the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NIH NINDS.