CBE Seminar: "Fabrication and Long-term Reliability of High Efficiency Monocrystalline Silicon Solar Cells" (Agarwal, Colorado School of Mines)
2023-12-06 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Global energy demand will continue to increase, and the ability of fossil fuels to meet these demands is limited due to the associated climate change concerns. In response to these concerns, new energy installations are increasingly based on renewable energy resources such as wind and solar. To further develop solar energy as a renewable energy resource, it is critical to improve the efficiency and reliability of silicon-based solar cells, which represent more than 95% of the current photovoltaics market. In this presentation, I will discuss strategies to improve the efficiency of silicon solar cells via passivating contacts, which serve both as a contact layer and a passivation layer for the crystalline silicon (c-Si) surface. These types of contacts are currently being incorporated into the next-generation industrially-manufactured cSi solar cells. I will discuss the fabrication of these contacts, the underlying principle for charge transport through these contacts, and their performance on both planar and textured surfaces. I will also discuss field degradation mechanism of c-Si solar cells, and describe strategies that can be implemented to suppress these defects.

MSE Grace Hopper Lecture: "Quantum Simulations for Quantum Technologies," (Giulia Galli - University of Chicago)
2023-12-07 10:30 - 12:00 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
In this talk, I will describe theoretical and computational strategies based on quantum mechanical calculations, aimed at predicting material properties suitable for the development of quantum technologies. Specifically, I will discuss the electronic structure and coherent states of spin defects in two- and three-dimensional semiconductors and insulators, obtained using both classical and near-term quantum computers.

PRECISE Seminar: Formal Methods for Computer Architecture: Reducing the Barriers to Entry
2023-12-08 10:00 - 11:00 | Room 307, Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Formal methods can provide strong correctness guarantees for today’s computing systems, but their usage is often restricted to formal methods experts. Formal verification is then bottlenecked on these experts, limiting its effectiveness. This problem is acute in computer architecture, since many architects do not have formal methods expertise.

In this talk, I will present recent work with my students and collaborators that reduces the barriers to entry for computer architects to use formal methods. First, I will discuss our work on automatically generating formal microarchitectural models of hardware. These models are necessary for microarchitectural verification, and generally need to be written by hand by formal methods experts. In contrast, our work can automatically generate such models from accessible inputs like test programs and execution traces or from hardware RTL implementations. These models can then be used for formal verification of memory consistency and hardware security using known automated verification techniques. I will also speak briefly on our technique for automated verification of cyber-physical systems written in the Lingua Franca coordination language.
Meanwhile, we also need to develop formal models and verification techniques for emerging architectures that significantly change the hardware-software interface. As an example, I will discuss our ongoing work on developing a verified programming model for a recent non-traditional memory hierarchy. I will conclude with our work on automatically converting axiomatic formal models to their operational equivalents, enabling each type of model to be used for the tasks it handles best.

Fall 2023 GRASP on Robotics: Marc Miskin, University of Pennsylvania, "Tiny Robots"
2023-12-08 10:30 - 11:45 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
Nature routinely makes smart, complex, yet microscopically tiny machines. But how can humans do it? And can we do it in a way that is easy to design and understand? This talk is about building microscopic robots, those too small to see with the naked eye. By co-opting semiconductor technology, I’ll show how to build fully autonomous, programmable micro-robots. These machines pack memory, microprocessors, communication systems, sensors, actuators, and on-board power into a single package too small to see by eye. I’ll show several types of tiny robots including quadrupeds, hexapods and even some that use solid-state electrokinetic propulsion mechanisms to swim. Finally, I’ll discuss early applications, including a project to regrow damaged nerves by using robots to literally pull them where they need to go.

CBE Doctoral Dissertation: "From Nanoplates to Bottlebrushes: Engineering Thermodynamics in Polymer Nanocomposites" (Christian Tabedzki)
2023-12-11 16:30 - 18:00 | DRL A2
Abstract: Polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) represent a diverse class of materials where manipulating design parameters is crucial for tailoring material properties. Of utmost importance for nanocomposites is nanoparticle dispersion, which is affected by the nanoparticle itself as well as the overall polymer melt, providing two design routes. This dissertation explores PNCs through two distinctive systems: (1) nanoplates grafted with polymers in a linear diblock copolymer matrix and (2) bare nanospheres in a core-shell bottlebrush matrix. The investigation advances the understanding of nanoparticle dispersion in linear diblock copolymer matrices and unveils the thermodynamics of a novel core-shell bottlebrush architecture. The initial focus on grafted nanoplates in linear diblock copolymers employs a hybrid particle/self-consistent field theory (hSCFT) to reveal the impact of nanoparticle insertion on polymer interfaces and exploring nanoparticle dispersion and inter-particle distance. The subsequent chapter extends this work, exploring diverse polymer matrix molecular weights and demonstrating the dependence of free energy minima on nanoplate size relative to lamellar domain dimensions. Shifting to a novel polymer architecture called core-shell bottlebrush copolymer, the analysis investigates the order-to-disorder transition, chain conformations, and thermodynamic integration of nanospheres. The research provides insights into the preference of nanoparticle localization within the bottlebrush structure, influenced by surface area considerations. Future work is proposed, including a comprehensive phase diagram exploration for core-shell bottlebrushes, expanded nanoparticle studies, and refinement of the liquid crystalline model to capture experimental complexities, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement in modeling PNCs to align with evolving experimental insights.
Christian Tabedzki is a Ph.D. student advised by Prof. Robert Riggleman in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Christian received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His research focuses on the grafted polymer nanoplates within a lamellar system and spherical nanoparticles within core-shell bottlebrush copolymers.

Advisor: Robert Riggleman (CBE)

Committee Members: Russell Composto (MSE), Chinedum Osuji (CBE), Amish Patel (CBE)

Fall 2023 GRASP Seminar: Yufei Ye, Carnegie Mellon University, "Predicting and Reconstructing Everyday Human Interactions"
2023-12-12 13:15 - 14:15 | Levine 512
*This seminar will be held in-person in Levine 512 with virtual attendance via Zoom. The seminar will NOT be recorded.
ABSTRACT
In this talk, I will discuss about building computer vision system that understands everyday human interactions with rich spatial information, in particular hand-object interactions (HOI). Such systems can benefit VR/AR to perceive reality and to modify its virtual twin, and robotics to learn manipulation by watching humans. Previous methods are limited to constrained lab environments or pre-selected objects with known 3D shapes. My works explore learning general interaction priors from large-scale data that can generalize to novel everyday scenes for both perception and prediction.
The talk consists of two parts. The first part focuses on HOI prediction — predicting plausible human grasps for any objects. We found that image synthesis serves as a shortcut for 3D prediction for better generalization. The second part focuses on reconstructing interactions in 3D space for generic objects by leveraging data-driven prior, including from single images and everyday video clips.

ESE Fall Seminar - "Magnetic technologies for battery-free bioelectronics and neuromodulation"
2023-12-12 15:00 - 16:00 | Room 337, Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Miniature implanted and injected technologies capable of manipulating and recording biological signals promise to improve the way we study biology and the way we diagnose and treat disease; however, to create an effective bioelectronic network we must overcome myriad engineering challenges. In this talk, I will describe how we can leverage unique material properties to overcome some of these challenges. Specifically, I will show how magnetoelectric materials allow us to effectively transmit data and power to mm-sized devices deep inside the body. I will also describe how we can engineer fast magnetic control of genetically targeted neurons. Overall, these technologies provide a suite of miniature interfaces that could support next-generation brain-computer interfaces and closed-loop electronic medicine.

Herman P. Schwan Distinguished Lecture: “Seeing the Unseen: How AI Redefines Bioengineering” (Dorin Comaniciu, Siemens Healthineers)
2023-12-13 13:00 - 15:00 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Abstract coming soon. The lecture and Q&A will be followed by a light reception in Levine Lobby.
The Herman P. Schwan Distinguished Lecture is in honor of one of the founding members of the Department of Bioengineering, who emigrated from Germany after World War II and helped create the field of bioengineering in the US. It recognizes people with a similar transformative impact on the field of bioengineering.

BE Doctoral Dissertation: "Development of Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 Imaging Approaches for Assessing Lung Transplantation" (Faraz Amzajerdian)
2023-12-18 11:00 - 13:00 | Donner-Grice Auditorium
The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Rahim Rizi are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Faraz Amzajerdian.

Title: “Development of Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 Imaging Approaches for Assessing Lung Transplantation”.

Date: Monday, December 18, 2023
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Donner-Grice Auditorium (HUP Dulles Building 2nd floor)

The public is welcome to attend.

MEAM Seminar: “Innovations in Rocket Propulsion Systems”
2023-12-20 14:00 - 15:00 | Room 337, Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Rocket propulsion systems push the limits of our understanding and applications of science, engineering, and manufacturing. With every new mission requirement there is need for innovations in the design, modeling and fabrication of components and systems that come together to propel flight vehicles through the earth’s atmosphere as well as the vacuum of space. In this mini lecture, I will attempt to draw the lines that connect the fundamentals of rocket propulsion to the innovations that are behind the current boost in commercial space exploration.

Fall 2023 GRASP Seminar: Hadar Elor, Tel Aviv University, "Marrying Vision and Language: A Mutually Beneficial Relationship?"
2023-12-21 10:00 - 11:00 | Zoom
This is a virtual event with virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
Foundation models that connect vision and language have recently shown great promise for a wide array of tasks such as text-to-image generation. Significant attention has been devoted towards utilizing the visual representations learned from these powerful vision and language models. In this talk, I will present an ongoing line of research that focuses on the other direction, aiming at understanding what knowledge language models acquire through exposure to images during pretraining. We first consider in-distribution text and demonstrate how multimodally trained text encoders, such as that of CLIP, outperform models trained in a unimodal vacuum, such as BERT, over tasks that require implicit visual reasoning. Expanding to out-of-distribution text, we address a phenomenon known as sound symbolism, which studies non-trivial correlations between particular sounds and meanings across languages, and demonstrate the presence of this phenomenon in vision and language models such as CLIP and Stable Diffusion. Our work provides new angles for understanding what is learned by these vision and language foundation models, offering principled guidelines for designing models for tasks involving visual reasoning.

BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "MRI Quantification of Cortical Bone Microstructure and Material Composition with Ultrashort Echo Time" (Brandon Jones)
2024-01-17 11:00 - 13:00 | Donner-Grice Auditorium
The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania along with Drs. Chamith Rajapakse and Felix Wehrli are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Brandon Jones.
Title: “MRI Quantification of Cortical Bone Microstructure and Material Composition with Ultrashort Echo Time”
Date: Wednesday, January 17th, 2024
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Donner-Grice Auditorium (HUP Dulles Building 2nd floor)
Zoom option:
https://upenn.zoom.us/j/93114939198?pwd=[REDACTED]
The public is welcome to attend.

ASSET Seminar: "Scaling Your Large Language Models on a Budget" (Atlas Wang, University of Texas at Austin)
2024-01-17 12:00 - 13:15 | Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
ABSTRACT:
As the sizes of Large Language Models (LLMs) continue to grow exponentially, it becomes imperative to explore novel computing paradigms that can address the dual challenge of scaling these models while adhering to constraints posed by compute and data resources. This presentation will delve into several strategies aimed at alleviating this dilemma: (1) refraining from training models entirely from scratch, instead making use of readily available pre-trained models to optimize the training starting point of a new, larger model; (2) leveraging this concept of progressive initialization to enhance compute and data efficiency during the neural scaling process; (3) integrating hardness-aware data sampling, and more memory-efficient optimizers (work in progress). The talk will be concluded by a few (informal) thoughts and reflections.

BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Exploring the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases at scale" (Saranya Santhosh Kumar)
2024-01-18 10:00 - 12:00 | HUB-01-1632 conference room
The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Ophir Shalem are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Saranya Santhosh Kumar.

Title: Exploring the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases at scale

Date: January 18, 2024
Time: 10:00 am
Location: HUB-01-1632 conference room

The public is welcome to attend.

BE Seminar: "Toward a multi-task, multi-source foundation model to advance large-scale neural data analysis" (Eva Dyer, Georgia Tech)
2024-01-18 15:30 - 16:30 | Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Neuroscience datasets are expanding rapidly in both size and volume. However, integrating information across diverse datasets to form a unified understanding of brain function remains challenging. In this talk, I will discuss our initiatives to combine datasets from various tasks, brain regions, and species into a unified ‘neurofoundation’ model. This foundational model promises to enhance data efficiency, brain-machine interface and neural decoder capabilities, and offer advanced, user-friendly tools to the broader neuroscience community. These efforts mark a significant step towards a more integrated methodology in neural data analysis.

BE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: "Harnessing Regnase-1 and Roquin-1 activity to modulate T cell function" (David Mai)
2024-01-22 13:00 - 15:00 | Arthur H Rubenstein Auditorium, 3400 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Carl June are pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of David Mai.

Date: January 22, 2024
Time: 1PM EST

Title: Harnessing Regnase-1 and Roquin-1 activity to modulate T cell function
Location: Arthur H Rubenstein Auditorium (https://www.itmat.upenn.edu/itmat/education-and-training/assets/user-content//documents/DirectionsSmilowCTRAuditorium.pdf)

Zoom link

The public is welcome to attend.

MEAM Seminar: "Transport and Delivery by Active Materials"
2024-01-23 10:00 - 11:30 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
One of the major challenges in robotics is controlling micromanipulation by active and adaptive materials. Existing delivery technologies often suffer from limited navigation control, low speeds, and proneness to environmental disturbances. Biology often solves these problems by collectively organizing actuation at the microscale. For example, pathogens are removed from our lungs by an active carpet of cilia [1]. Inside these cilia, in turn, microtubules form highways for molecular motors. In this talk, I will present developments in the microfabrication of “artificial cilia” [2] and “artificial microtubules” [3]. We designed amphibious cilia that can transport both liquids and dry objects. These carpets can sort particles by size and by shape using a crowd-surfing effect. We also designed magnetic microtubules, structured microfibers that rapidly guide particles through flow networks such as the cardiovascular system. These works offer unique strategies for robust microscale delivery, but equally shed light on non-equilibrium diffusion [4] in biological transport processes.
[1] Ramirez-San Juan GR et al. “Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays”, Nat. Phys. 16: 958–964 (2020)
[2] Demirörs AF et al. “Amphibious transport of fluids and solids by soft magnetic carpets”, Adv. Sci. 202102510 (2021)
[3] Gu H et al. “Artificial microtubules for rapid and collective transport of magnetic microcargos”, Nat. Mach. Intel. 4: 678–684 (2022)
[4] Guzman-Lastra F et al. “Active carpets drive non-equilibrium diffusion and enhanced molecular fluxes,” Nat. Commun. 12: 1906 (2021)

ASSET Seminar: "Learning to Read X-Ray: Applications to Heart Failure Monitoring" (Polina Golland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
2024-01-24 12:00 - 13:15 | Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
ABSTRACT:
We propose and demonstrate a novel approach to training image classification models based on large collections of images with limited labels. We take advantage of availability of radiology reports to construct joint multimodal embedding that serves as a basis for classification. We demonstrate the advantages of this approach in application to assessment of pulmonary edema severity in congestive heart failure that motivated the development of the method.

CBE Seminar: "Bioinspired Protein-Based Cancer Immunotherapy" (Yanpu He, MIT)
2024-01-24 15:30 - 16:30 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Abstract:
Immunotherapy has revolutionized the field of cancer treatment over the past two decades, though only a small fraction of patients treated will achieve complete remission. As such, new paradigms to overcome resistance to immunotherapies are urgently needed. My research seeks to tailor immunotherapies towards individual differences in immune systems and the inherent heterogeneity of cancer. For this talk, I will share my work on a key therapeutic target against cancer called the STimulator of INterferon Genes (STING) signaling. I first addressed an innate immunodeficiency caused by a loss-of-function mutation of STING protein affecting 20% of the human population, using the cytosolic domain of STING (STINGΔTM) as a functional agonist carrier to activate signaling in STING-deficient cells. Subsequently, I developed a therapeutic cancer vaccine based on this platform by fusing STINGΔTM with immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) nanobodies. The treatment eliminated subcutaneous colon and melanoma tumors in 70-100% of mice and protected all cured mice against rechallenge, while mechanistic studies revealed a distinct STING-mediated anti-tumor immunity driven by robust TH1 polarization and Treg suppression in CD4+ T cells, followed by the collaboration of CD8+ T and NK cells to eliminate tumors. For my independent group, I will continue these prospects in designing protein therapeutics and leveraging the full potential of CD4+ T cells, initially towards personalized cancer immunotherapies and expanding to other monogenic immunodeficiencies and drug delivery challenges in the long run.

ESE Grace Hopper Lecture - "Disrupting NextG"
2024-01-25 15:00 - 16:00 | Glandt Forum, Singh Center for Nanotechnology, 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
As 5G takes to the airwaves, we now turn our imagination to the next generation of wireless technology. The promise of this technology has created an international race to innovate, with significant investment by government as well as industry. And much innovation is needed as 6G aspires to not only support significantly higher data rates than 5G, but also improved reliability along with excellent coverage indoors and out, including for underserved areas. New architectures including edge computing must be designed to drastically enhance efficient resource allocation while also reducing latency for real-time control. Breakthrough energy-efficiency architectures, algorithms and hardware will be needed so that wireless devices can be powered by tiny batteries, energy-harvesting, or over-the-air power transfer. And machine learning may will play a big role in the underlying technologies for NextG as well as the “killer apps” that will drive its deployment and success. This talk will describe what the wireless future might look like along with some of the innovations and breakthroughs required to realize this vision.

Spring 2024 GRASP on Robotics: Dinesh Manocha, University of Maryland, College Park, “Robot Navigation in Complex Indoor and Outdoor Environments”
2024-01-26 10:30 - 11:45 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
In the last few decades, most robotics success stories have been limited to structured or controlled environments. A major challenge is to develop robot systems that can operate in complex or unstructured environments corresponding to homes, dense traffic, outdoor terrains, public places, etc. In this talk, we give an overview of our ongoing work on developing robust planning and navigation technologies that use recent advances in computer vision, sensor technologies, machine learning, and motion planning algorithms. We present new methods that utilize multi-modal observations from an RGB camera, 3D LiDAR, and robot odometry for scene perception, along with deep reinforcement learning for reliable planning. The latter is also used to compute dynamically feasible and spatial aware velocities for a robot navigating among mobile obstacles and uneven terrains. We have integrated these methods with wheeled robot and legged platforms and highlight their performance in crowded indoor scenes and dense outdoor terrains.

PICS Colloquium: "An introduction to neural ODEs in scientific machine learning."
2024-01-26 14:15 - 15:00 | Zoom
This is a quick introduction to neural ODEs for scientific applications. The goal is to (a) provide a modelling tool that enhances the expressivity of existing theory-driven approaches, (b) demonstrate that neural ODEs are easy to use via modern autodifferentiable software, and (c) give enough of the tips-and-tricks needed to make neural ODEs work in practice!
Zoom link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/96060692429

MEAM Seminar: "Making Dynamic Robots Taskable"
2024-01-30 10:00 - 11:30 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
In this talk, I will share some insights and observations from our work on Atlas, the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot. I’ll talk about some of the core ideas—like model-predictive control (MPC)—that have made an impact for us, how learning is playing a larger role in how we design control systems at Boston Dynamics, and how we think about scaling up through real world deployments.

CIS Seminar: "Obfuscation of Quantum Computation"
2024-01-30 15:30 - 16:30 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Protecting secrets within computer systems is a central mission of cryptography. Program obfuscation, which scrambles computer code without harming its functionality, is an immensely powerful and versatile tool for accomplishing this task that has been the subject of intense study in classical cryptography. Yet, the ability to obfuscate quantum computation had previously remained elusive to researchers, even with the widespread use of quantum technology on the horizon.
This talk will demonstrate how quantum information-processing systems can keep secrets, and explore the implications of this ability. In particular, we will cover a series of recent results that establish the feasibility of obfuscating general-purpose quantum computation, and reveal deep connections with several important fields of study within quantum computational science, including verification of quantum computation and unclonable cryptography.

ASSET Seminar: “Towards A New Frontier of Trustworthy AI: Interpretable Machine Learning Algorithms that Produce All Good Models” (Chudi Zhong, Duke University)
2024-01-31 12:00 - 13:30 | Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
ABSTRACT:
Machine learning has been increasingly deployed for high-stakes decisions that deeply impact people’s lives. My research focuses on developing interpretable algorithms and pipelines to ensure the safe and efficient utilization of machine learning models in the decision-making process. In this talk, I will introduce a new paradigm, called learning the Rashomon set, which finds and stores all models within epsilon of the optimal loss. I will present algorithms for finding optimal models and Rashomon sets, discuss how this new paradigm can break the interaction bottleneck between users and ML algorithms, and provide examples of its applications.

ZOOM LINK (if unable to attend in-person): https://upenn.zoom.us/j/99641494762

Spring 2024 GRASP SFI: Raphael Zufferey, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, "Flying robots: exploring hybrid locomotion and physical interaction"
2024-01-31 15:00 - 16:00 | Levine 307, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. This week’s speaker will be virtual.
ABSTRACT
Autonomous flying robots have become widespread in recent years, yet their capability to interact with the environment. remains limited. Moving in multiple fluids is one of the great challenges of mobile robotics, and carries great potential for application in biological and environmental studies. In particular, hybrid locomotion provides the means to cross large distances and obstacles or even change from one body of water to another thanks to flight. At the same time, they are capable of operating underwater, collecting samples, video and aquatic metrics. However, the challenges of operating in both air and water are complex. In this talk, we will introduce these challenges and cover several research solutions which aim to adress these in different modalities, depending on locomotion and objectives. Bio-inspiration plays a crucial role in these solutions, and the topic of flapping flight in the context of physical interaction will also be presented.

CBE Seminar: "Optimal Control as a catalyst for Smart and Sustainable Systems" (Benjamin Decardi-Nelson, Cornell)
2024-01-31 15:30 - 16:30 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Abstract:
In modern engineering, sustainability is a crucial aspect, especially in chemical and biological process systems. This concept has evolved to encompass a holistic approach, emphasizing not only the use of sustainable resources but also the development of systems that are environmentally friendly, smart, and efficient. Such systems aim to minimize waste and optimize resource use. At the heart of this shift is optimal control, a fundamental element in engineering smart, sustainable systems. However, the integration of optimal control technologies into these systems is challenging due to the complexity of managing large-scale, constrained, nonlinear, and interconnected subsystems, particularly under uncertain conditions. In this talk, I will introduce a series of optimal control technologies that contribute to smarter and more efficient systems, enhancing their sustainability. Specifically, I will discuss the development and application of (1) model predictive control and (2) reinforcement learning, which are instrumental in creating systems that use minimal resources and generate less waste. I will also demonstrate how optimal control is pivotal in advancing sustainable food production in urban areas through the integration of renewable energy and efficient resource management. Overall, these advancements in optimal control techniques illustrate their transformative role in shaping the future of intelligent, sustainable systems, underscoring their vital importance in our path toward a more sustainable world.

BE Seminar: "Imaging the Brain for Deeper, Finer, and More Diverse Insight" (Fei Xia, Ecole Normale Supérieure)
2024-02-01 15:30 - 16:30 | Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
The brain is a powerful organ that regulates health and drives intelligence. How can we see more clearly into the working brain to understand it better? High-resolution optical microscopy has long been an ideal tool due to its spatial sub-micron precision and specificity. However, achieving the necessary spatio-temporal scale for further advancing our understanding of the brain remains a challenge. The primary obstacle originates from the inhomogeneous nature of tissues, which distort light and compromise imaging depth, precision, and information.
In this talk, I will introduce new in vivo deep tissue optical microscopy platforms advanced in microscope design and computational tools, to address existing challenges. By moving towards longer wavelengths for one-, two-, and three-photon microscopy, we have achieved simultaneous deep structural and functional imaging through an entire cortical column with multiple label-free and fluorescence contrasts. With precise control of light, we have enabled adaptive optical imaging of dendritic spines and myelinated axons up to the hippocampus. With a new AI-enabled tool, we have sped up volumetric 3D imaging for microvasculature, neurons, and dendrites. These techniques advance toward imaging the dynamic, cell-type-specific processes and microvasculature within the living brain. I will conclude by discussing the opportunities these enabling optical microscopy techniques offer for biology and clinical applications.

Spring 2024 GRASP on Robotics: John Doyle, California Institute of Technology, "Control/Architecture/Control"
2024-02-02 10:30 - 11:45 | Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
This is a hybrid event with a VIRTUAL SPEAKER. There will be in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
This talk will describe progress in developing a universal theory of architectures for complex networks, motivated by and applied to aerospace, process control, internet, cyberphysical, ecosystems, multiscale physics, turbulence, biology, neuroscience, medicine, linguistics, and social systems.

PICS Colloquium: "Exploring the landscape of model representations"
2024-02-02 14:00 - 15:00 | PICS Conference Room 534 – A Wing , 5th Floor, 3401 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Many studies adopt low-resolution, coarse-grained (CG) models to investigate polymers, proteins, and other soft materials. These studies must first specify the details that are retained in the low-resolution model, i.e., they must specify the “CG representation.” Unfortunately, the “best” representation for complex systems is not always obvious. In this study, we systematically explore the space of model representations for a typical protein and we examine how the properties of the CG model depend upon the choice of representation, i.e., the details retained in the CG model. By adopting a simple high-resolution model for protein fluctuations, we quantitatively assess the quality of a representation based upon its information content, I, and spectral quality, Q. While I quantifies the information lost due to eliminating details from the high-resolution model, Q quantifies the extent to which the representation preserves large scale motions. By employing these metrics as energy functions and adopting an ergodic move set, we explore the local and global minima in the space of representations. Additionally, by employing Monte Carlo methods, we quantify the number of representations with a given quality. We find that representations with high spectral quality match our physical intuition, while highly informative representations do not. Indeed, we find that the information content and spectral quality are anti-correlated among low-resolution representations. Moreover, our study suggests the possibility of a critical resolution below which there may exist a “phase transition” distinguishing good and bad representations. These studies may provide insight for developing CG models of soft materials and, more generally, for developing reduced representations of complex phenomena or high-dimensional data.
