Online courses directory (2511)

This course surveys questions about human behavior and mental life ranging from how you see to why you fall in love. The great controversies: nature and nurture, free will, consciousness, human differences, self and society. Students are exposed to the range of theoretical perspectives including biological, evolutionary, cognitive, and psychoanalytic. One of the best aspects of Psychology is that you are the subject matter. This makes it possible to do many demonstrations in lecture that allow you to experience the topic under study. Lectures work in tandem with the textbook. The course breaks into small recitations sections to allow discussion, oral presentations, and individual contact with instructors.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic, progressive, degenerative disease of the brain that produces movement disorders and deficits in executive functions, working memory, visuospatial functions, and internal control of attention. It is named after James Parkinson (1755-1824), the English neurologist who described the first case.

This six-week summer workshop explored different aspects of PD, including clinical characteristics, structural neuroimaging, neuropathology, genetics, and cognitive function (mental status, cognitive control processes, working memory, and long-term declarative memory).  The workshop did not take up the topics of motor control, nondeclarative memory, or treatment. 

This course is an introduction to computational theories of human cognition. Drawing on formal models from classic and contemporary artificial intelligence, students will explore fundamental issues in human knowledge representation, inductive learning and reasoning. What are the forms that our knowledge of the world takes? What are the inductive principles that allow us to acquire new knowledge from the interaction of prior knowledge with observed data? What kinds of data must be available to human learners, and what kinds of innate knowledge (if any) must they have?

This course studies the relations of affect to cognition and behavior, feeling to thinking and acting, and values to beliefs and practices. These connections will be considered at the psychological level of organization and in terms of their neurobiological and sociocultural counterparts.

This course examines interpersonal and group dynamics, considers how the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individuals are influenced by (and influence) the beliefs, values, and practices of large and small groups. Learning occurs through a combination of lectures, demonstrations and in-class activities complemented by participation in small study groups and completion of homework assignments.

This course provides a detailed overview of the chemical transformations that control the abundances of key trace species in the Earth's atmosphere. Emphasizes the effects of human activity on air quality and climate. Topics include photochemistry, kinetics, and thermodynamics important to the chemistry of the atmosphere; stratospheric ozone depletion; oxidation chemistry of the troposphere; photochemical smog; aerosol chemistry; and sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and other climate forcers.

Humans are social animals; social demands, both cooperative and competitive, structure our development, our brain and our mind. This course covers social development, social behaviour, social cognition and social neuroscience, in both human and non-human social animals. Topics include altruism, empathy, communication, theory of mind, aggression, power, groups, mating, and morality. Methods include evolutionary biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, social psychology and anthropology.

The neuropharmacology course will discuss the drug-induced changes in functioning of the nervous system. The specific focus of this course will be to provide a description of the cellular and molecular actions of drugs on synaptic transmission. This course will also refer to specific diseases of the nervous system and their treatment in addition to giving an overview of the techniques used for the study of neuropharmacology.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course is offered to undergraduates and introduces students to the formulation, methodology, and techniques for numerical solution of engineering problems. Topics covered include: fundamental principles of digital computing and the implications for algorithm accuracy and stability, error propagation and stability, the solution of systems of linear equations, including direct and iterative techniques, roots of equations and systems of equations, numerical interpolation, differentiation and integration, fundamentals of finite-difference solutions to ordinary differential equations, and error and convergence analysis. The subject is taught the first half of the term.

This subject was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.002J. In 2005, ocean engineering became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this subject was renumbered 2.993J.

This class assesses current and potential future energy systems, covering resources, extraction, conversion, and end-use technologies, with emphasis on meeting regional and global energy needs in the 21st century in a sustainable manner. Instructors and guest lecturers will examine various renewable and conventional energy production technologies, energy end-use practices and alternatives, and consumption practices in different countries. Students will learn a quantitative framework to aid in evaluation and analysis of energy technology system proposals in the context of engineering, political, social, economic, and environmental goals. Students taking the graduate version, Sustainable Energy, complete additional assignments.

This subject provides an introduction to modeling and simulation, covering continuum methods, atomistic and molecular simulation, and quantum mechanics. Hands-on training is provided in the fundamentals and applications of these methods to key engineering problems. The lectures provide exposure to areas of application based on the scientific exploitation of the power of computation. We use web based applets for simulations, thus extensive programming skills are not required.

Numerical methods for solving problems arising in heat and mass transfer, fluid mechanics, chemical reaction engineering, and molecular simulation. Topics: numerical linear algebra, solution of nonlinear algebraic equations and ordinary differential equations, solution of partial differential equations (e.g. Navier-Stokes), numerical methods in molecular simulation (dynamics, geometry optimization). All methods are presented within the context of chemical engineering problems. Familiarity with structured programming is assumed. The examples will use MATLAB®.

Acknowledgements

The instructor would like to thank Robert Ashcraft, Sandeep Sharma, David Weingeist, and Nikolay Zaborenko for their work in preparing materials for this course site.

This course applies the concepts of reaction rate, stoichiometry and equilibrium to the analysis of chemical and biological reacting systems, derivation of rate expressions from reaction mechanisms and equilibrium or steady state assumptions, design of chemical and biochemical reactors via synthesis of chemical kinetics, transport phenomena, and mass and energy balances. Topics covered include: chemical/biochemical pathways; enzymatic, pathway, and cell growth kinetics; batch, plug flow and well-stirred reactors for chemical reactions and cultivations of microorganisms and mammalian cells; heterogeneous and enzymatic catalysis; heat and mass transport in reactors, including diffusion to and within catalyst particles and cells or immobilized enzymes.

This course covers fundamentals of thermodynamics, chemistry, flow and transport processes as applied to energy systems. Topics include analysis of energy conversion in thermomechanical, thermochemical, electrochemical, and photoelectric processes in existing and future power and transportation systems, with emphasis on efficiency, environmental impact and performance. Systems utilizing fossil fuels, hydrogen, nuclear and renewable resources, over a range of sizes and scales are discussed. Applications include fuel reforming, hydrogen and synthetic fuel production, fuel cells and batteries, combustion, hybrids, catalysis, supercritical and combined cycles, photovoltaics, etc. The course also deals with different forms of energy storage and transmission, and optimal source utilization and fuel-life cycle analysis.