Online courses directory (19947)

An advanced course covering anatomical, physiological, behavioral, and computational studies of the central nervous system relevant to speech and hearing. Students learn primarily by discussions of scientific papers on topics of current interest. Recent topics include cell types and neural circuits in the auditory brainstem, organization and processing in the auditory cortex, auditory reflexes and descending systems, functional imaging of the human auditory system, quantitative methods for relating neural responses to behavior, speech motor control, cortical representation of language, and auditory learning in songbirds.

The course includes survey and special topics designed for graduate students in the brain and cognitive sciences. It emphasizes ethological studies of natural behavior patterns and their analysis in laboratory work, with contributions from field biology (mammology, primatology), sociobiology, and comparative psychology. It stresses mammalian behavior but also includes major contributions from studies of other vertebrates and of invertebrates. It covers some applications of animal-behavior knowledge to neuropsychology and behavioral pharmacology.

This course focuses on the social and cultural aspects of networked life through internet-related technologies (including computers, mobile devices, entertainment technologies, and emerging media forms).

The central point of this course is to provide a physical basis that links the structure of materials with their properties, focusing primarily on metals. With this understanding in hand, the concepts of alloy design and microstructural engineering are also discussed, linking processing and thermodynamics to the structure and properties of metals.

This course offers an in-depth the theoretical foundations for statistical methods that are useful in many applications. The goal is to understand the role of mathematics in the research and development of efficient statistical methods.

This course focuses on neural structures and mechanisms mediating the detection, localization and recognition of sounds. Discussions cover how acoustic signals are coded by auditory neurons, the impact of these codes on behavioral performance, and the circuitry and cellular mechanisms underlying signal transformations. Topics include temporal coding, neural maps and feature detectors, learning and plasticity, and feedback control. General principles are conveyed by theme discussions of auditory masking, sound localization, musical pitch, speech coding, and cochlear implants.

This course is for upper-level graduate students who are planning careers in computational neuroscience. This course focuses on the problem of supervised learning from the perspective of modern statistical learning theory starting with the theory of multivariate function approximation from sparse data. It develops basic tools such as Regularization including Support Vector Machines for regression and classification. It derives generalization bounds using both stability and VC theory. It also discusses topics such as boosting and feature selection and examines applications in several areas: Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Text Classification, and Bioinformatics. The final projects, hands-on applications, and exercises are designed to illustrate the rapidly increasing practical uses of the techniques described throughout the course.

The course focuses on the problem of supervised learning within the framework of Statistical Learning Theory. It starts with a review of classical statistical techniques, including Regularization Theory in RKHS for multivariate function approximation from sparse data. Next, VC theory is discussed in detail and used to justify classification and regression techniques such as Regularization Networks and Support Vector Machines. Selected topics such as boosting, feature selection and multiclass classification will complete the theory part of the course. During the course we will examine applications of several learning techniques in areas such as computer vision, computer graphics, database search and time-series analysis and prediction. We will briefly discuss implications of learning theories for how the brain may learn from experience, focusing on the neurobiology of object recognition. We plan to emphasize hands-on applications and exercises, paralleling the rapidly increasing practical uses of the techniques described in the subject.

This course provides an overview of the distinctive features which distinguish sound categories of languages of the world. Theories which relate these categories to their acoustic and articulatory correlates, both universally and in particular languages, are covered. Models of word recognition by listeners, features, and phonological structure are also discussed. In addition, the course offers a variety of perspectives on these issues, drawn from Electrical Engineering, Linguistics and Cognitive Science.

Political Economy I explores the major social science paradigms for analyzing relations among state, economy, and society. Through readings, lectures and discussion of original texts in political liberalism and individualism, neo-classical economics, Marxism, sociological and cultural theories, and neo-institutionalism, the seminar examines the fundamental assumptions on which our understanding of the social world and our research are based.

Through investigating cross-cultural case studies, this course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, gender, and sexuality. We will explores the myriad forms that families and households take and considers their social, emotional, and economic dynamics.

What you do not know about money can really affect your entire life! Financial Literacy is a free, online introductory course about personal financial management. In this interactive multimedia course, a series of seven dynamic modules covering everything from how to set up your first bank account to planning for your retirement will put you on the path to financial fitness!

Touch typing is a skill that will serve you for a lifetime. Develop your keyboard skills and save yourself hours with this free online course from ALISON, which will improve your typing speed and accuracy.<br /><br />ALISON's Touch Typing Training includes typing tests, which will help you to work effectively and efficiently, increasing your productivity at work and home.<br />

This course is a seminar in real-time language comprehension. It considers models of sentence and discourse comprehension from the linguistic, psychology, and artificial intelligence literature, including symbolic and connectionist models. Topics include ambiguity resolution and linguistic complexity; the use of lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, contextual and prosodic information in language comprehension; the relationship between the computational resources available in working memory and the language processing mechanism; and the psychological reality of linguistic representations.

6.863 is a laboratory-oriented course on the theory and practice of building computer systems for human language processing, with an emphasis on the linguistic, cognitive, and engineering foundations for understanding their design.

This course explores the organization of synaptic connectivity as the basis of neural computation and learning. Perceptrons and dynamical theories of recurrent networks including amplifiers, attractors, and hybrid computation are covered. Additional topics include backpropagation and Hebbian learning, as well as models of perception, motor control, memory, and neural development.

This course takes a 'back to the beginning' view that aims to better understand the end result. What might be the developmental processes that lead to the organization of 'booming, buzzing confusions' into coherent visual objects? This course examines key experimental results and computational proposals pertinent to the discovery of objects in complex visual inputs. The structure of the course is designed to get students to learn and to focus on the genre of study as a whole; to get a feel for how science is done in this field.

The course will start with an overview of the central and peripheral nervous systems (CNS and PNS), the development of their structure and major divisions. The major functional components of the CNS will then be reviewed individually. Topography, functional distribution of nerve cell bodies, ascending and descending tracts in the spinal cord. Brainstem organization and functional components, including cranial nerve nuclei, ascending / descending pathways, amine-containing cells, structure and information flow in the cerebellar and vestibular systems. Distribution of the cranial nerves, resolution of their skeletal and branchial arch components. Functional divisions of the Diencephalon and Telencephalon. The course will then continue with how these various CNS pieces and parts work together. Motor systems, motor neurons and motor units, medial and lateral pathways, cortical versus cerebellar systems and their functional integration. The sensory systems, visual, auditory and somatosensory. Olfaction will be covered in the context of the limbic system, which will also include autonomic control and the Papez circuit. To conclude, functional organization and information flow in the neocortex will be discussed.

Anybody working in the knowledge economy needs a basic understanding of word processing. This free online course covers the fundamental principles of using Microsoft Word 2003. <br />Word is part of the Microsoft Office suite of courses. This free MS Word training covers all you need to get started. It teaches you how to open documents and manipulate the words on the page so they look as you intend, whatever your purpose. <br />