News

Welcome New MCL Member Mozhdeh Rouhsedaghat

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

My name is Mozhdeh Rouhsedaghat. I received my bachelor’s degree from EE department of Sharif University of Technology. I am currently a Ph.D. student at the Media Communications Lab (MCL) at USC and supervised by professor C. -C. Jay Kuo. My research interests include image processing, computer vision, and deep learning.

 

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

USC is a top university and has a beautiful architecture. I really enjoy fresh air in the mornings and walking through amazing buildings on the campus. MCL has a friendly environment and a dynamic atmosphere. Its members are kind and talented and support each other. Professor Kuo is very wise, kind, and caring, and working in this atmosphere is pleasurable for me.

 

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I am going to improve my research skills in computer vision and I hope I can reach great achievements during my studies.

By |September 2nd, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member Mozhdeh Rouhsedaghat|

Welcome New MCL Member Zhiruo Zhou

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

My name is Zhiruo Zhou, and I just received my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering this July. Now I will start my first year at USC as a PhD student. During my undergraduate training, research projects that I got involved in were mostly about image processing, such as denoising on MRI images and image recognition tasks. Having experiences with both traditional image processing techniques and machine learning, I would like to explore more on their relationship and applications.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

The sunshine here is always warm and the integral architectural style on campus makes me feel comfortable. The MCL is really a big group and has a great network. The pizza lunch and seminar on Friday are fantastic and beneficial. You can always learn from your group members and they are pleased to offer help. It’s enjoyable to know these lovely people, and I’m happy to be one of them!

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I expect that I could gradually establish a deep understanding of machine learning and be well practiced in doing research. I might also try to refine my career plan by communicating with professors and peers. Also, I want to know more about the MCL family and make friends with them.

By |August 26th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member Zhiruo Zhou|

Congratulations to Haiqiang Wang for passing PhD defense

Congratulations to Haiqiang Wang for passing his PhD defense on August 21, 2018. His PhD thesis is entitled “A Data-Driven Approach to Compressed Video Quality Assessment Using Just Noticeable Difference”.

Abstract of thesis:
The problem of human-centric compressed video quality assessment (VQA) is studied in the research. In this thesis, he propose a new methodology for compressed video quality measurement and assessment based on the just-noticeable-difference (JND) notion. The process of building a large-scale coded H.264/AVC video quality dataset is described. Then, he measure the JND-based video quality using the satisfied user ratio (SUR) curve and designing an SUR prediction method with video quality degradation feature and masking feature. The method consists of the following steps: 1) partition a video clip into local spatial-temporal segments and evaluate the quality of each segment using the VMAF quality index, 2) aggregate these local VMAF measures to derive a global index, 3) significant segments are selected based on the slope of quality scores between neighboring coded clips, and 4) incorporate the masking effect that reflects the unique characteristics of each video clip. Then use the support vector regression (SVR) to minimize the distance of the SUR curves, and derive the JND point accordingly. At last, propose a JND-based VQA model that takes subject variabilities and content variabilities into account. He build a user model by utilizing user’s capability to discern the quality difference. He study the SUR difference as it varies with user profile as well as content with variable level of difficulty. The proposed model aggregates quality ratings per user group to address inter-group difference.
We are so glad to have him share his PhD experience with us. Here is his sharing.
I would like to thank Professor Kuo for [...]

By |August 21st, 2018|News|Comments Off on Congratulations to Haiqiang Wang for passing PhD defense|

Welcome New MCL Member – Chenxuan Guo

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

My name is Chenxuan Guo. I am a junior student of Electrical and Computer Engineering department in NCTU (National Chiao Tung University). I come to MCL for an internship in summer. One of the things that I am interested is audio analysis, especially instrumental music separating and converting. Hope one day the accurate realization of audio to score (including audio to midi and midi to score) comes true. The second one is the topic of parallelized computing or distributed operating systems. I am still researching about the faster approximation of optimization of source allocation in fog computing.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

I like the atmosphere of MCL, because Professor Guo’s guidance is very special, more like a father than a teacher. Everyone in the lab has their own strengths and they are good at supporting each other.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I hope I can finish my research in graph embedding timely this summer. With help from Pr. Kuo, Bin and Jessica. I must make a push to do my experiment.

 

By |August 19th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Chenxuan Guo|

Welcome New MCL Member – Zhiyu Yao

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

Hello, my name is Zhiyu Yao. I am a third-year student from Tsinghua University. I like playing tennis, table tennis, and soccer. My research interest is deep learning and computer vision, especially in video recognition and transfer learning. I think lots of open questions are worth studying in the field of computer vision.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

USC is one of the top universities in the world. I am very glad to study as an intern in MCL. MCL is a warm family and everyone here is very kind and warmhearted. I am very lucky to do research with Prof. Kuo participating in deep learning group, and I am impressed by the strong passion for research from MCL members. Everyone here is self-motivated and is willing to help each other not only in research but also in daily life.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

In this summer, I am working with Prof. Kuo and his PhD student Yueru in the study of face detection. Hopefully I can solve the monkey face detection problem well the help of them. I believe doing research in MCL can help me grow up quickly in computer vision.

By |August 13th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Zhiyu Yao|

Welcome New MCL Member – Jiawei Lin

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

Hi, I’m Jiawei Lin, a rising senior currently studying Electrical Engineering at National Chiao Tung University located at Hsinchu, Taiwan. Back in Taiwan, I enjoy taking courses with more emphasis on the underlying theory, including physics, communication systems, and signal processing courses. These topics are in essence very different from what I’m currently working on here – face detection, making the internship experience challenging but rewarding. Outside the academics, I enjoy playing football, basketball, and singing.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

Back in my university, more than 80 percent of the students major in science and technology related field. This led me to be particularly impressed with how diverse USC actually is. As for MCL, I feel grateful to be here! Prof. Kuo cares for all members in the lab, and members treat each other like family. In addition, activities, seminars, and group studies held here broaden my perspective, making them so inspiring.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I’m currently working on a face detection project using deep learning as the fundamental framework. Hopefully, at the end of the internship, I would have good understanding of deep learning and be able to apply some of that knowledge in future researches.

 

By |August 5th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Jiawei Lin|

Welcome New MCL Member – Hong-Shuo Chen

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

I am Hong-Shuo Chen, and my English name is Max. I am a senior undergraduate student studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. I like coding, math and everything about engineering. It gives me great pleasure to come to MCL as a summer intern. My research interests are image segmentation and texture analysis. The world of the computer vision is very broad that I want to explore more in this field.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

MCL is really a cooperative and warm lab which makes me the feel at home. I really enjoy the period of time staying in MCL and like this place. Every time I have problems, MCL members are always willing to help, which makes me feel very warm. Doing research here is really an enchanting experience that I would never forget. People in MCL are all very warm and nice. I want to especially thank Prof. Kuo and my mentor Kaitai Zhang. With their help, I could do research smoothly and learn a lot of knowledge.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

In this summer, with the guidance of Prof. Kuo and Kaitai, I hope I can finish a decent project and learn a lot in image segmentation and texture analysis. In the future, I also want to study in the United States and broaden my horizons. I hope I can become a good engineer, and contribute myself to this society.

By |July 29th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Hong-Shuo Chen|

Welcome New MCL Member – Jie Ren

We are happy to welcome a MCL summer intern – Jie Ren! Here is an interview with Jie:

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests? I am Jie Ren, a junior student from Tsinghua University, China. I major in Automation, Theory of Control. I am very glad to be a summer intern here in MCL. This is my first time to be in the U.S. It is an excellent experience. My research interests focus on 3D reconstruction. I have been doing research for sometime on the light field, which is a method of 3D reconstruction. I would like to explore more topics in the future.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

Everyone in MCL is so warm and enthusiastic. I have never believed we would receive such a friendly welcome. Thank you all! USC is really different from THU. The campus is not very large but delicate and beautiful! Although it is smaller than THU, the squirrels are far larger and more than those in THU where I have seen a squirrel for only one time. They are so lovely here!

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I am now working with Jiali on the combination of light field and machine learning. We would like to explore a new a idea in this area. In the future, I plan to study abroad. I love China, where I was given a birth and which built me who I am. I also want to see the outside world and communicate with people from different countries.

By |July 15th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Jie Ren|

Welcome New MCL Member – JiGyun Kim

We are happy to welcome a MCL summer intern – JiGyun Kim! Here is an interview with JiGyun:

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

My name is JiGyun Kim, I am a rising junior undergraduate from Korea Aerospace University. I major in Electronics and Avionics. Although I am pretty new in Deep Learning, I am interested in it, and its wide application attracts me very much. I am also interested in semiconductor design, as I had some design experience about it, like making digital clock and Mips CPU with Verilog HDL and making video game and karaoke machine with De1-SoC board. Moreover, I want to do some study in autonomous vehicles, what is why I am constructing a autonomous RC car navigated by image processing in my Bachelor’s degree capstone design.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

The first thing I was impressed when I came to USC is its beautiful campus, and also various people diversity. I think summer internship is a great chance for me to have a different perspective to the world.

MCL in USC is a really large research group, full of professional people. I believe I can a lot here, thanks to Prof. Kuo’s and other lab colleagues’ kindness and help. Additionally, One of the exciting things about MCL is the weekly seminar, which is a great communication platform with people from variant backgrounds.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I want to complete projects by Deep Learning in MCL. My current summer study proposal is on the real-time recognition on car license plate number using YOLO v3. I plan to study the structure of Neural Networks, and then implement YOLO v3 by TensorFlow.

By |July 9th, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – JiGyun Kim|

Welcome New MCL Member – Min Zhang

We are happy to welcome a MCL summer intern – Min Zhang! Here is an interview with Min:

1. Could you briefly introduce yourself and your research interests?

My name is Min Zhang. I graduated from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in June, 2017, and I am currently a M.S. student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at USC. About research interests, I would like to work on image and video processing. Researches both on theoretical and application field attract me very much, like architecture researches on CNNs, or application research related to unmanned driving. In my daily life, I like to do some sports, such as playing table tennis, badminton, and running. And I am very interested in finding delicious food in LA.

2. What is your impression about MCL and USC?

The environment of USC is quite good, as there are many green trees and flowers surrounding us. I really enjoy walking on campus. People in USC are all very kind and enthusiastic which impressed me a lot in the past year. I know that image processing of USC is quite good before I come here and I have wanted to study in MCL for a long time. Fortunately, I can be a summer intern student in MCL and I meet many hardworking and passionate students in the lab. I hope I can do well and study more.

3. What is your future expectation and plan in MCL?

I am now working with Prof. Kuo to study further into CNN’s architecture. I hope we can have a better explanation about it. Besides, I am also interested in researches about image and video processing.

 

By |July 1st, 2018|News|Comments Off on Welcome New MCL Member – Min Zhang|