Online courses directory (2511)

This course examines the role of the engineer as patent expert and as technical witness in court and patent interference and related proceedings. It discusses the rights and obligations of engineers in connection with educational institutions, government, and large and small businesses. It compares various manners of transplanting inventions into business operations, including development of New England and other U.S. electronics and biotechnology industries and their different types of institutions. The course also considers American systems of incentive to creativity apart from the patent laws in the atomic energy and space fields.

Acknowledgment

The instructors would like to thank Joanne Rines and Elijah Ercolino for their efforts in preparing this course.

6.933J / STS.420J provides an integrated approach to engineering practice in the real world. Students of 6.933J / STS.420J research the life cycle of a major engineering project, new technology, or startup company from multiple perspectives: technical, economic, political, and cultural. Research involves interviewing inventors, reading laboratory notebooks, evaluating patents, and looking over the shoulders of engineers as they developed today's technologies. This subject is for students who recognize that technical proficiency alone is only part of the formula for success in technology.

This course covers concepts and techniques for the design and implementation of large software systems that can be adapted to uses not anticipated by the designer. Applications include compilers, computer-algebra systems, deductive systems, and some artificial intelligence applications. Topics include combinators, generic operations, pattern matching, pattern-directed invocation, rule systems, backtracking, dependencies, indeterminacy, memoization, constraint propagation, and incremental refinement. Substantial weekly programming assignments are an integral part of the subject.

There will be extensive programming assignments, using MIT/GNU Scheme. Students should have significant programming experience in Scheme, Common Lisp, Haskell, CAML or some other "functional" language.

This course provides an introduction to the technology and policy context of public communications networks, through critical discussion of current issues in communications policy and their historical roots. The course focuses on underlying rationales and models for government involvement and the complex dynamics introduced by co-evolving technologies, industry structure, and public policy objectives. Cases drawn from cellular, fixed-line, and Internet applications include evolution of spectrum policy and current proposals for reform; the migration to broadband and implications for universal service policies; and property rights associated with digital content. The course lays a foundation for thesis research in this domain.

This participatory seminar focuses on the knowledge and skills necessary for teaching science and engineering in higher education. This course is designed for graduate students interested in an academic career, and anyone else interested in teaching. Topics include theories of adult learning; course development; promoting active learning, problem-solving, and critical thinking in students; communicating with a diverse student body; using educational technology to further learning; lecturing; creating effective tests and assignments; and assessment and evaluation. Students research and present a relevant topic of particular interest. The subject is appropriate for both novices and those with teaching experience.

The strategic importance of information technology is now widely accepted. It has also become increasingly clear that the identification of strategic applications alone does not result in success for an organization. A careful coordination of strategic applications, information technologies, and organizational structures must be made to attain success. This course addresses strategic, technological, and organizational connectivity issues to support effective and meaningful integration of information and systems. This course is especially relevant to those who wish to effectively exploit information technology and create new business processes and opportunities.

This course features a core framework for an interest-based, problem-solving approach to technology, logistics and other systems-oriented negotiations. A comprehensive approach to dispute resolution in organizations and complex engineered systems is also developed. The course builds key interactive skills, including communications skills, dealing with difficult people, negotiating over the "rules of game," and cross-cultural negotiations. Assignments center on analysis of negotiated interactions and assessing dispute resolution systems.

An examination of current economic and policy issues in the electric power industry, focusing on nuclear power and its fuel cycle. Introduces techniques for analyzing private and public policy alternatives, including discounted cash flow methods and other techniques in engineering economics. Application to specific problem areas, including nuclear waste management and weapons proliferation. Other topics include deregulation and restructuring in the electric power industry.

In 2004, the Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight captured the public's imagination and revolutionized an industry, leveraging a $10M prize purse into over $100M in innovation. Building from that success, the X PRIZE Foundation is now developing new prizes to focus innovation around "Grand Challenge" themes, including genomics, energy, healthcare, and education.

This course will examine the intersection of incentives and innovation, drawing on economic models, historic examples, and recent experience of the X PRIZE Foundation to help develop a future prize in Energy Storage Technologies.

This subject presents a range of advanced topics in integrated logistics and supply chain management. The course was conducted in a lecture-discussion format, with participation of corporate executives as guest lecturers. Students prepare industry assessment analyses and make formal classroom presentations. Specific topics alternate from year to year, but basic content includes procurement strategies and strategic sourcing, dynamic pricing and revenue management tactics, mitigation of supply chain risk through supply contracts, strategic outsourcing of supply chain functions and operations, management and operation of third party logistics providers, and management of supply chain security.

This course covers principles and methods for technical System Architecture. It presents a synthetic view including: the resolution of ambiguity to identify system goals and boundaries; the creative process of mapping form to function; and the analysis of complexity and methods of decomposition and re-integration. Industrial speakers and faculty present examples from various industries. Heuristic and formal methods are presented. Restricted to SDM (System Design and Management) students.

In 16.89 / ESD.352 the students will first be asked to understand the key challenges in designing ground and space telescopes, the stakeholder structure and value flows, and the particular pros and cons of the proposed project. The first half of the class will concentrate on performing a thorough architectural analysis of the key astrophysical, engineering, human, budgetary and broader policy issues that are involved in this decision. This will require the students to carry out a qualitative and quantitative conceptual study during the first half of the semester and recommend a small set of promising architectures for further study at the Preliminary Design Review (PDR).

Both lunar surface telescopes as well as orbital locations should be considered.

The second half of the class will then pick 1-2 of the top-rated architectures for a lunar telescope facility and develop the concept in more detail and present the detailed design at the Critical Design Review (CDR). This should not only sketch out the science program, telescope architecture and design, but also the stakeholder relationships, a rough estimate of budget and timeline, and also clarify the role that human explorers could or should play during both deployment and servicing/operations of such a facility (if any).

This course is an introduction to the consideration of technology as the outcome of particular technical, historical, cultural, and political efforts, especially in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include industrialization of production and consumption, development of engineering professions, the emergence of management and its role in shaping technological forms, the technological construction of gender roles, and the relationship between humans and machines.