BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Penn Engineering Events - ECPv6.15.18//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Penn Engineering Events X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Penn Engineering Events REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20220313T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20221106T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20230312T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20231105T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20240310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20241103T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230912T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230912T113000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230831T201245Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230831T201245Z UID:10007665-1694512800-1694518200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:MEAM Seminar: "Viscoelastic Biopolymer Networks Model Fibrotic Niches" DESCRIPTION:Fibrosis and remodeling of extracellular matrix are involved in many diseases\, such as tumors\, wound healing\, and chronic inflammation. During fibrosis\, tissues undergo changes in their viscoelastic properties\, i.e.\, how they resist deformation like a solid and dissipate stress over time like a fluid. Our research determines the impact of viscoelasticity on inflammation in fibrotic tissues and develops new immune therapies in cancer and regeneration. We employ material strategies to manipulate and study cell behavior in a broad range of physiologic and disease contexts\, including tissue regeneration\, hematopoietic and solid tumor malignancies\, and fibrosis. Overall\, our long-term goal is to develop novel biomaterials that enable precision health engineering. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/meam-seminar-viscoelastic-biopolymer-networks-model-fibrotic-niches/ LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Seminar ORGANIZER;CN="Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics":MAILTO:meam@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230912T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230912T120000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230829T194413Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230829T194413Z UID:10007651-1694516400-1694520000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:ESE Fall Seminar - "Josephson parametric amplifiers for rapid\, high-fidelity measurement of solid-state qubits" DESCRIPTION:Quantum physics puts a limit on how small the noise added by an amplifier can be. Limiting this extra noise\, which causes unavoidable signal degradation\, is an essential requirement for the measurement of weak electromagnetic signals in various areas of science and engineering. In particular\, a nearly-quantum-limited microwave amplifier is a key tool for performing rapid\, high-fidelity measurement of solid-state qubits. In this talk\, I will review how we build Josephson parametric amplifiers (JPAs) that adds only the minimum amount of noise required by quantum physics. Focusing on a specific JPA circuit called the SNAIL parametric amplifier\, I will discuss how\, we have improved the performance of these amplifiers to achieve greater power handling and information throughput\, necessary for realizing large-scale quantum information processors. Finally\, I will discuss recent work to realize JPAs with a new element\, a Josephson Junction Field Effect Transistor (JJFET) made from InAs-Al superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/ese-fall-seminar-title-tbd/ LOCATION:Glandt Forum\, Singh Center for Nanotechnology\, 3205 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium ORGANIZER;CN="Electrical and Systems Engineering":MAILTO:eseevents@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T131500 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230911T145514Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230911T145514Z UID:10007681-1694606400-1694610900@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:ASSET Seminar: "Efficient and Targeted COVID-19 Border Testing Via Reinforcement Learning" (Hamsa Bastani\, Penn) DESCRIPTION:ABSTRACT:  \nThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic\, countries relied on a variety of ad-hoc border control protocols to allow for non-essential travel while safeguarding public health: from quarantining all travellers to restricting entry from select nations based on population-level epidemiological metrics such as cases\, deaths or testing positivity rates. Here we report the design and performance of a reinforcement learning system\, nicknamed ‘Eva’. In the summer of 2020\, Eva was deployed across all Greek borders to limit the influx of asymptomatic travellers infected with SARS-CoV-2\, and to inform border policies through real-time estimates of COVID-19 prevalence. In contrast to country-wide protocols\, Eva allocated Greece’s limited testing resources based upon incoming travellers’ demographic information and testing results from previous travellers. By comparing Eva’s performance against modelled counterfactual scenarios\, we show that Eva identified 1.85 times as many asymptomatic\, infected travellers as random surveillance testing\, with up to 2-4 times as many during peak travel\, and 1.25-1.45 times as many asymptomatic\, infected travellers as testing policies that only utilize epidemiological metrics. We demonstrate that this latter benefit arises\, at least partially\, because population-level epidemiological metrics had limited predictive value for the actual prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among asymptomatic travellers and exhibited strong country-specific idiosyncrasies in the summer of 2020. Our results raise serious concerns on the effectiveness of country-agnostic internationally proposed border control policies that are based on population-level epidemiological metrics. Instead\, our work represents a successful example of the potential of reinforcement learning and real-time data for safeguarding public health. \nBIO: \nHamsa Bastani is an Assistant Professor of Operations\, Information\, and Decisions at the Wharton School\, University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on developing novel machine learning algorithms for data-driven decision-making\, with applications to healthcare operations and social good. Her work has received several recognitions\, including the Wagner Prize for Excellence in Practice (2021)\, the Pierskalla Award for the best paper in healthcare (2016\, 2019\, 2021)\, the Behavioral OM Best Paper Award (2021)\, as well as first place in the George Nicholson and MSOM student paper competitions (2016). URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/asset-seminar-efficient-and-targeted-covid-19-border-testing-via-reinforcement-learning-hamsa-bastani-penn/ LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States ORGANIZER;CN="AI-enabled Systems%3A Safe%2C Explainable%2C and Trustworthy (ASSET) Center":MAILTO:asset-info@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T160000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230906T192935Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230906T192935Z UID:10007673-1694617200-1694620800@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:Fall 2023 GRASP SFI: Jim Fan\, NVIDIA AI\, "Generalist Agents in Open-Ended Worlds" DESCRIPTION:This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Levine 307 and virtual attendance on Zoom. \nABSTRACT\nAutonomous agents have made great strides in specialist domains like Atari games and Go. However\, they typically learn tabula rasa in isolated environments with limited objectives\, thus failing to generalize across a wide spectrum of tasks and capabilities. Inspired by how humans continually learn and adapt in the open world\, we advocate a trinity of ingredients for building generalist agents: 1) an environment that supports an infinite variety of tasks and goals\, 2) a large-scale database of multimodal knowledge\, and 3) a flexible and scalable agent architecture. We introduce MineDojo\, a new framework built on the popular Minecraft game that features a simulation suite with 1000s of diverse open-ended tasks and an internet-scale knowledge base with YouTube videos\, Wiki pages\, and Reddit posts. We also propose two new algorithms on top of MineDojo: 1) MineCLIP\, a foundation reward function reminiscent of RLHF for embodied agents; and 2) Voyager\, an LLM-powered lifelong learning agent that explores and improves itself purely in-context. We look forward to seeing how MineDojo empowers the community to make more progress on the grand challenge of open-ended agent learning. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/fall-2023-grasp-sfi-jim-fan/ LOCATION:Levine 307\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Seminar ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T153000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230913T163000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230821T193707Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230821T193707Z UID:10007642-1694619000-1694622600@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:CBE Seminar: "Improving the Sustainability of Solvent-Borne Paints and Coatings through Fundamental Studies of Polymerization Reactions" (Soroush\, Drexel University) DESCRIPTION:The global market size of paints and coatings (P&C) was US$164 Billion in 2022 and is forecast to grow to US$241Billion by 2030. A fast-growing sector in the P&C industries is acrylics. P&C should contain a solvent in order to be brushable/sprayable. However\, in the case of solvent-borne P&C\, their improved sustainability requires decreasing their organic solvent contents. This sustainability-applicability tradeoff can be addressed by preparing P&C from polymers with lower average molecular weights\, which can be produced via high-temperature (> 130 °C)free-radical polymerization. However\, at these temperatures\, several reactions — that are of little significance at low temperatures — strongly affect the polymer product quality. These so-called secondary reactions include monomer self-initiation\, monomer-solvent and monomer-molecular oxygen co-initiation\, depropagation\, β-scission\, and backbiting. We have made advances in quantum-level polymerization reaction modeling — that have enabled us to discover new reactions and fundamentally study previously known reactions in thermal polymerization of acrylates — as well as in macroscopic-scale mechanistic modeling and optimization of high-temperature polymerization reactors. Sample results from these studies will be presented. They will include new theoretical and experimental insights that can be used to produce more sustainable\, higher-quality acrylic P&C at lower costs. The self-initiation of acrylates at high temperatures improves the polymer quality and reduces the operating costs due to less or no use of relatively expensive conventional initiators. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/cbe-seminar-improving-the-sustainability-of-solvent-borne-paints-and-coatings-through-fundamental-studies-of-polymerization-reactions-soroush-drexel-university/ LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Seminar ORGANIZER;CN="Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering":MAILTO:cbemail@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T100000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T120000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230828T154618Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230828T154618Z UID:10007648-1694772000-1694779200@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:BE Doctoral Dissertation: "Batch effect detection and harmonization methods for quantitative features extracted from medical images" (Hannah Horng) DESCRIPTION:The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania along with Drs. Despina Kontos and Taki Shinohara proudly announce the Doctoral Dissertation Defense of Hannah Horng.\n \nTitle: Batch effect detection and harmonization methods for quantitative features extracted from medical images\nDate: September 15\, 2023\nTime: 10:30am\nLocation: John Morgan Building – Class of ’62 Auditorium.\n\n \nZoom option:\n\nhttps://upenn.zoom.us/j/98693898665?pwd=c1lKZ0pzNjJsZEdaTm16Z05GQ2VoUT09 \nMeeting ID: 986 9389 8665\nPasscode: 905326\n\n \nThe public is welcome to attend. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/be-doctoral-dissertation-batch-effect-detection-and-harmonization-methods-for-quantitative-features-extracted-from-medical-images-hannah-horng/ LOCATION:Class of 62 Auditorium\, John Morgan Building\, 3620 Hamilton Walk\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104 CATEGORIES:Doctoral,Graduate,Student,Dissertation or Thesis Defense ORGANIZER;CN="Bioengineering":MAILTO:be@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T103000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T114500 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230831T160201Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230831T160201Z UID:10007663-1694773800-1694778300@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:Fall 2023 GRASP Seminar: GRASP Research Overview - Day 2 DESCRIPTION:GRASP Lab faculty confirmed presentations (where appropriate their presenters)…\n*This is a HYBRID Event with in-person attendance in Wu & Chen Auditorium and virtual attendance via Zoom. \nDr. Ani Hsieh (Welcome and Introduction)\nDr. Jean Gallier\nDr. Michelle Johnson (presented by Francis Sowande)\nDr. Vijay Kumar (presented by Jake Welde)\nDr. Lingjie Liu\nDr. Nik Matni (presented by Fengjun Yang)\nDr. George Pappas\nDr. Cynthia Sung\nDr. Marc Miskin URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/fall-2023-grasp-seminar-grasp-research-overview-day-2/ LOCATION:Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101)\, Levine Hall\, 3330 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Seminar ORGANIZER;CN="General Robotics%2C Automation%2C Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab":MAILTO:grasplab@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T131500 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230908T195526Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230908T195526Z UID:10007675-1694779200-1694783700@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:Engineering Faculty Teaching Forum: "Being Accessible to Students while Preserving Your Time" DESCRIPTION:Finding time to support and mentor students can be challenging. Drs. Lee Bassett and Jennifer Lukes will start this informal conversation by sharing ideas for promoting positive relationships with students while maintaining boundaries to preserve our time. We will consider ways to use office hours efficiently\, as well as ways to leverage technology to simplify scheduling and communication. Lunch will be provided for those who register in advance. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/engineering-faculty-teaching-forum-being-accessible-to-students-while-preserving-your-time/ LOCATION:Towne 108\, 220 South 33rd Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Faculty END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230915T150000 DTSTAMP:20260404T064432 CREATED:20230906T174501Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230906T174501Z UID:10007672-1694786400-1694790000@seasevents.nmsdev7.com SUMMARY:PICS Colloquium: "The Virtual Pregnancy: Using Computational Models to Probe Human Reproduction" DESCRIPTION:  \nPreterm birth affects approximately ten percent of pregnancies and rates of maternal mortality in the US are rising. Computational investigations of pregnancy have great potential to explore fundamental aspects of reproductive physiology that are otherwise difficult or even impossible to investigate in humans. There are few-to-no good animal models of human pregnancy\, and the reasonable ethical restrictions on experimentation with pregnant women limit clinical research.  This talk will discuss how image-based computational modeling techniques can be used across length-scales to study different aspects of human pregnancy.  Examples considered will include (a) models of individual collagen fibrils in preterm fetal membrane rupture\, (b) maternal-fetal oxygen transport in the placenta\, and (c) stresses in C-section scars at risk of rupture in subsequent pregnancies.  With the recent worldwide attention given to poor maternal and fetal outcomes\, fundamental bioengineering research into the mechanisms of preterm birth is timely and necessary.  Computational models—including even full ‘digital twin’ models of pregnant persons—present a unique opportunity to advance an under-studied branch of medicine with significant financial and societal implications. URL:https://seasevents.nmsdev7.com/event/pics-colloquium-the-virtual-pregnancy-using-computational-models-to-probe-human-reproduction/ LOCATION:PICS Conference Room 534 – A Wing \, 5th Floor\, 3401 Walnut Street\, Philadelphia\, PA\, 19104\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium ORGANIZER;CN="Penn Institute for Computational Science (PICS)":MAILTO:dkparks@seas.upenn.edu END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR