- talks - lists.cs.princeton.edu

Shaowei Zhu will present his General Exam “A compositional and monotone approach to conditional termination of programs” on May 15, 2020 at 3:30pm via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 11 May '20

11 May '20

Shaowei Zhu will present his General Exam “A compositional and monotone approach to conditional termination of programs” on May 15, 2020 at 3:30pm via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/9538001170 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/9538001170 ] The members of his committee are as follows : Zachary Kincaid (adviser), Aarti Gupta, and Andrew Appel Abstract and Reading List: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xi7b7PFqU5CpzgkrG5Dldmv1EK01HjCllTNWGgv… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xi7b7PFqU5CpzgkrG5Dldmv1EK01HjCllTNWGgv… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Manik Dhar will present his General Exam "Furstenberg Sets in finite fields" on May 15, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 08 May '20

08 May '20

Manik Dhar will present his General Exam "Furstenberg Sets in finite fields" on May 15, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom. Zoom Link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/761050306 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/761050306 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Zeev Dvir (adviser), Gillat Kol, and Bernard Chazelle Link to the abstract: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ts7_emHza3S9L2zyIjMeWWHLVkspfJTdEYEWo4… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ts7_emHza3S9L2zyIjMeWWHLVkspfJTdEYEWo4… ] Link to the reading list: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/18_B3tVvDe4J4ZG59ih83VEn_3eIpzrBPJyZydxd… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/18_B3tVvDe4J4ZG59ih83VEn_3eIpzrBPJyZydxd… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Devon Loehr will present his General Exam "A Hiding Algorithm for Automatically Discovering Abstractions during Network Verificationon" on May 1, 2020 at 1pm via Zoom.
by Nicki Mahler 08 May '20

08 May '20

Devon Loehr will present his General Exam " A Hiding Algorithm for Automatically Discovering Abstractions during Network Verification on" on May 1, 2020 at 1pm via Zoom. Link to Zoom meeting: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/727524014 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/727524014 ] The members of his committee are as follows: David Walker (adviser), Aarti Gupta, and Zachary Kincaid Links to abstract and reading list can be found here: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1717QtFNjCW59xQFzqqHY3AOd_GLrJDKCkgqxvHj… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1717QtFNjCW59xQFzqqHY3AOd_GLrJDKCkgqxvHj… ] [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGMXc880i0oUsIt-9Jg7VZNn9n9L5dmf4sQUBjj… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGMXc880i0oUsIt-9Jg7VZNn9n9L5dmf4sQUBjj… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Ankit Goyal will present his General Exam on May 15, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 08 May '20

08 May '20

Ankit Goyal will present his General Exam on May 15, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/6916453614 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/6916453614 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Jia Deng (adviser), Olga Russakovsky, and Danqi Chen Link to Abstract & Reading List: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n5Va69uDQHZ60P-uyIAom0didz3-hYL-ZDQGpp7… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n5Va69uDQHZ60P-uyIAom0didz3-hYL-ZDQGpp7… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Uma Girish will present her General Exam "Quantum versus Classical Complexity: Lower Bounds for XOR of Forrelations" on May 18, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom.
by Nicki Mahler 08 May '20

08 May '20

Uma Girish will present her General Exam "Quantum versus Classical Complexity: Lower Bounds for XOR of Forrelations" on May 18, 2020 at 2pm via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/906703188 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/906703188 ] The members of her committee are as follows: Ran Raz (adviser), Mark Braverman, and Gillat Kol Link to Abstract & Reading Lists: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Dj6WTkOfFI9vRQERIFIukQCMi-85c8F1EBsJQP… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Dj6WTkOfFI9vRQERIFIukQCMi-85c8F1EBsJQP… ] [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Z5zeLGIZO53U38uuHpsO4rdcaxQ_9K6orDLr7M… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Z5zeLGIZO53U38uuHpsO4rdcaxQ_9K6orDLr7M… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Noah Apthorpe will present his FPO "Network Privacy and User Protection in the Internet of Things" on May 14, 2020 at 1pm via Zoom.
by Nicki Mahler 07 May '20

07 May '20

Noah Apthorpe will present his FPO "Network Privacy and User Protection in the Internet of Things" on May 14, 2020 at 1pm via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/97333893087 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/97333893087 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Nick Feamster (Adviser); Readers: Jennifer Rexford and Marshini Chetty; Examiners: Ed Felten, Arvind Narayanan, and Nick Feamster. A copy of his thesis, is available upon request. Please email ngotsis(a)cs.princeton if you would like a copy of the thesis. Everyone is invited to attend his talk. Abstract follows below. The proliferation of specialized Internet-connected consumer products, often called Internet of things (IoT) devices, presents unprecedented challenges for preserving user privacy. Some of these products, such as WiFi thermostats, replace conventional nonnetworked appliances. Others introduce new technologies, such as voice assistants, into users’ daily lives. Many consumer IoT devices contain sensors that record users’ activities in their living spaces and transmit information about these behaviors on the Internet. Understanding the social and technical privacy implications of consumer IoT devices is essential to informing the design and regulation of these technologies to protect users from inappropriate data collection and use. This dissertation employs human-computer interaction methods, technical vulnerability auditing, and Internet trac analysis to study user experiences with consumer IoT devices and the privacy risks posed by these products. Interviews and surveys show that users face complex decisions when adopting consumer IoT devices, weighing convenience against privacy concerns and variable trust in device manufacturers. Consumer IoT devices also a↵ect users’ relationships, strengthening interpersonal connections while causing conflicts about device sharing and undesired surveillance. A new survey method based on the theory of contextual integrity enables further discovery of user privacy norms at scale and the comparison of privacy norms to IoT device behavior and privacy regulation. Network privacy audits of IoT children’s toys flagged by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Oce reveal many vulnerabilities, including personally identifiable information in crash reports, data retention after deletion requests, and a lack of encryption and authentication. These vulnerabilities violate manufacturer privacy policies and the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Finally, metadata analysis shows that a passive network eavesdropper can infer private in-home activities from IoT Internet trac even when devices use end-toend transport layer encryption. This motivates the creation of a low-overhead trac shaping algorithm, “stochastic trac padding,” that prevents such an eavesdropper from distinguishing user activities from generated trac patterns. These contributions advance our understanding of IoT privacy challenges, support the need for strong privacy defaults in consumer IoT products, and enhance the ability of researchers, manufacturers, and regulators to protect users from IoT privacy risks.

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Felix Yu will present his General Exam "Improving Generalization in Vision and Language Navigation through Random Walk Sampling" on May 15, 2020 at 10:30am via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 07 May '20

07 May '20

Felix Yu will present his General Exam " Improving Generalization in Vision and Language Navigation through Random Walk Sampling" on May 15, 2020 at 10:30am via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/3590231672 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/3590231672 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Olga Russakovsky (adviser), Jia Deng, and Karthik Narasimhan Link to Abstract and Reading List: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZ3I0gO0EjyQbux5xHfC39u_gMOr9HcImr5KefQ… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZ3I0gO0EjyQbux5xHfC39u_gMOr9HcImr5KefQ… ] [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cuZcEQda8lqW3npumDNr1eONVqbzdNOvLnf-_Lu… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cuZcEQda8lqW3npumDNr1eONVqbzdNOvLnf-_Lu… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Joomy Korkut will present his General Exam "Ergonomics and verification of a foreign function interface between Coq and C" on May 14, 2020 at 10am via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 06 May '20

06 May '20

Joomy Korkut will present his General Exam "Ergonomics and verification of a foreign function interface between Coq and C" on May 14, 2020 at 10am via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/715408179 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/715408179 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Andrew Appel (adviser), David Walker, and David August Link to Abstract and Reading List: [ https://pl.cs.princeton.edu/generals/ckorkut.html | https://pl.cs.princeton.edu/generals/ckorkut.html ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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Ariel Schvartzman Cohenca will present his FPO "Circumventing Lower Bounds in Mechanism and Tournament Design" on May 13, 2020 at 1:30pm via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 05 May '20

05 May '20

Ariel Schvartzman Cohenca will present his FPO "Circumventing Lower Bounds in Mechanism and Tournament Design" on May 13, 2020 at 1:30pm via Zoom. Zoom link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/94615499699 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/94615499699 ] The members of his committee are as follows: Matthew Weinberg (adviser), Readers: Gillat Kol and Elad Hazan; Examiners: Matthew Weinberg, Ran Raz, and Mark Braverman A copy of his thesis, is available upon request. Please email ngotsis(a)cs.princeton if you would like a copy of the thesis. Everyone is invited to attend his talk. Abstract follows below. How should a seller price multiple items in order to maximize their revenue from a single buyer? This question has been key in connecting research done by computer scientists and economists to applications such as online ad auctions and spectrum auctions. It was shown almost 40 years ago that if the buyer only cares for one item it is optimal for the seller to offer the buyer the item at a take-it-or-leave-it price [74]. This elegant solution, however, may be far from optimal even for the case with a single buyer interested in just two items. Optimal auction design for two or more items is intricate for a number of reasons: the auctions may be bizarre, computationally hard to find or simply too complex to present to a bidder [34, 52, 56, 68]. Numerous results suggest that (under reasonable complexity assumptions) efficiently finding optimal auctions, even in some simple settings, is impossible [27, 33]. In this thesis, I will present numerous ways in which we try to circumvent these impossibility results in order to recover positive results. These include the study of different multi-item models and beyond-worst case analysis for mechanism design. I will also discuss recent advances in tournament design, a field at the intersection of mechanism design and social choice theory. For problems in this field we get around known impossibility results via approximations in order to find approximately strategyproof tournament rules.

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Fangyin Wei will present her General Exam "Learning to Manipulate 3D Shapes" on May 13, 2020 at 3pm via Zoom
by Nicki Mahler 05 May '20

05 May '20

Fangyin Wei will present her General Exam "Learning to Manipulate 3D Shapes" on May 13, 2020 at 3pm via Zoom. Zoom Link: [ https://princeton.zoom.us/j/5929951382 | https://princeton.zoom.us/j/5929951382 ] The members of her committee are as follows: Szymon Rusinkiewicz (adviser), Thomas Funkhouser (adviser), and Felix Heide Abstract and Reading List: [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NLok_Q5Hlc2sLiuFRK8uzvXvn8UgfSGEpqoOxr4… | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NLok_Q5Hlc2sLiuFRK8uzvXvn8UgfSGEpqoOxr4… ] Everyone is invited to attend the talk, and those faculty wishing to remain for the oral exam following are welcome to do so.

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