Online courses directory (2511)

15.567 The Economics of Information provides an analysis of the underlying economics of information with management implications. It studies the effects of digitization and technology on industry, organizational structure, and business strategy, and examines pricing, bundling, and versioning of digital goods, including music, video, software, and communication services. In addition, the course considers the managerial implications of social networks, search, targeted advertising, personalization, privacy, network externalities, open source, and alliances.

This course aims at providing students with a solid background on the principles of structural engineering design. Students will be exposed to the theories and concepts of both concrete and steel design and analysis both at the element and system levels. Hands-on design experience and skills will be gained and learned through problem sets and a comprehensive design project. An understanding of real-world open-ended design issues will be developed. Besides regular lectures, weekly recitations and project discussion sessions will be held.

This course runs parallel to 8.02, but assumes that students have some knowledge of vector calculus. The class introduces Maxwell's equations, in both differential and integral form, along with electrostatic and magnetic vector potential, and the properties of dielectrics and magnetic materials.

This class was taught by an undergraduate in the Experimental Study Group (ESG). Student instructors are paired with ESG faculty members, who advise and oversee the students' teaching efforts.

This course provides students with the basic analytical and computational tools of linear partial differential equations (PDEs) for practical applications in science engineering, including heat / diffusion, wave, and Poisson equations. Analytics emphasize the viewpoint of linear algebra and the analogy with finite matrix problems. Numerics focus on finite-difference and finite-element techniques to reduce PDEs to matrix problems. The Julia Language (a free, open-source environment) is introduced and used in homework for simple examples.

The goals of this instructional course are to get you started in this wonderful sport and to give you a working knowledge of tennis. It should help you to understand the basics of a sport and how to perform these basics. Most of the course will focus on the basic stroke techniques. Variation to those techniques will be presented, as well as drills and games, so that you can take it to the court. Singles and doubles tactics will be covered as well.

This course covers the analytical, graphical, and numerical methods supporting the analysis and design of integrated biological systems. Topics include modularity and abstraction in biological systems, mathematical encoding of detailed physical problems, numerical methods for solving the dynamics of continuous and discrete chemical systems, statistics and probability in dynamic systems, applied local and global optimization, simple feedback and control analysis, statistics and probability in pattern recognition.

An official course Web site and Wiki is maintained on OpenWetWare: 20.181 Computation for Biological Engineers.

In this course, we will investigate the diverse types and functions of different RNA species, with a focus on "non-coding RNAs," i.e. those that do not directly encode proteins. The course will convey both the exciting discoveries in and frontiers of RNA research that are propelling our understanding of cell biology as well as the intellectual and experimental approaches responsible.

The molecular biology revolution firmly established the role of DNA as the primary carrier of genetic information and proteins as the primary effector molecules of the cell. The intermediate between DNA and proteins is RNA, which initially was regarded as the "molecule in the middle" of the central dogma. This view has been transformed over the past two decades, as RNA has become recognized as a critical regulator of cellular processes.

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 pass/fail seminar should be a fun setting where we can all enjoy a love of good books together. Students will read approximately one novel every two weeks, and the class will discuss each novel in a relaxed and interactive setting, with attention to whatever themes and issues interest them most about each book. We will read a wide mixture of classic and contemporary novels written by women, including: Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth; Toni Morrison, Jazz; Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Alice Walker, The Color Purple; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Sheri Reynolds, The Rapture of Canaan; Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; and Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. Recurrent issues likely to be discussed include: gender, race, and class; romance, love, and marriage; depression and suicide; and conception, childbirth, and parenthood.

This graduate research and reading seminar examines an array of issues facing labor in today's global world. The premise of this course is that recent developments (e.g., globalization, liberalization, privatization, etc.) have created a mix of opportunities and risks for labor in most developing countries.

This course treats public-sector policies, programs, and projects that attempt to increase employment through development-promoting measures in the economic realm, through support and regulation. It discusses the types of initiatives, tasks, and environments that are most conducive to equitable outcomes, and emphasizes throughout the understandings gained about why certain initiatives work and others don’t.

The main objective of 1.054/1.541 is to provide students with a rational basis of the design of reinforced concrete members and structures through advanced understanding of material and structural behavior. This course is offered to undergraduate (1.054) and graduate students (1.541). Topics covered include: Strength and Deformation of Concrete under Various States of Stress; Failure Criteria; Concrete Plasticity; Fracture Mechanics Concepts; Fundamental Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Structural Systems and their Members; Basis for Design and Code Constraints; High-performance Concrete Materials and their use in Innovative Design Solutions; Slabs: Yield Line Theory; Behavior Models and Nonlinear Analysis; and Complex Systems: Bridge Structures, Concrete Shells, and Containments.

Professor Oral Buyukozturk thanks Tzu-Yang Yu, a graduate student at MIT, for his valuable assistance in preparing course documents.

In this course, we will look at many important aspects of the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, from length scales of meters to thousands of km and time scales ranging from seconds to years. We will assume familiarity with concepts covered in course 12.003 (Physics of the Fluid Earth). In the early stages of the present course, we will make somewhat greater use of math than did 12.003, but the math we will use is no more than that encountered in elementary electromagnetic field theory, for example. The focus of the course is on the physics of the phenomena which we will discuss.

This course is intended for first year graduate students and advanced undergraduates with an interest in design of ships or offshore structures. It requires a sufficient background in structural mechanics. Computer applications are utilized, with emphasis on the theory underlying the analysis. Hydrostatic loading, shear load and bending moment, and resulting primary hull primary stresses will be developed. Topics will include; ship structural design concepts, effect of superstructures and dissimilar materials on primary strength, transverse shear stresses in the hull girder, and torsional strength among others. Failure mechanisms and design limit states will be developed for plate bending, column and panel buckling, panel ultimate strength, and plastic analysis. Matrix stiffness, grillage, and finite element analysis will be introduced. Design of a ship structure will be analyzed by "hand" with desktop computer tools and a final design project using current applications for structural design of a section will be accomplished.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.122. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.082.   

A computational camera attempts to digitally capture the essence of visual information by exploiting the synergistic combination of task-specific optics, illumination, sensors and processing. In this course we will study this emerging multi-disciplinary field at the intersection of signal processing, applied optics, computer graphics and vision, electronics, art, and online sharing through social networks. If novel cameras can be designed to sample light in radically new ways, then rich and useful forms of visual information may be recorded — beyond those present in traditional photographs. Furthermore, if computational process can be made aware of these novel imaging models, them the scene can be analyzed in higher dimensions and novel aesthetic renderings of the visual information can be synthesized.

We will discuss and play with thermal cameras, multi-spectral cameras, high-speed, and 3D range-sensing cameras and camera arrays. We will learn about opportunities in scientific and medical imaging, mobile-phone based photography, camera for HCI and sensors mimicking animal eyes. We will learn about the complete camera pipeline. In several hands-on projects we will build physical imaging prototypes and understand how each stage of the imaging process can be manipulated.

Practical Leadership is an interactive seminar where students receive repeated coaching and real-time feedback on their own leadership capabilities from their peers and the instructor. The course is structured around a set of readings. However, the key component is each student's own self-assessment. These self-assessments are done by the students in the first week of the semester. The areas for improvement that the students identify are then targeted in the weekly role plays that are customized for each student in the class. The goal of the class is for each student to increase his or her own leadership abilities through an ongoing cycle of practice, feedback and reflection.

This class examines the role of science in the US environmental policy-making process. It investigates the methods scientists use to learn about the natural world, the way scientific knowledge accumulates, the treatment of science by advocates and the media, and the role of science in legislative, administrative and judicial decision making. It also considers how other political systems use science in an effort to put the US approach in comparative perspective.

Cairo is the quintessential Islamic city. Founded in 634 at the strategic head of the Nile Delta, the city evolved from an Islamic military outpost to the seat of the ambitious Fatimid caliphate which flourished between the 10th and 12th century. Its most spectacular age, however, was the Mamluk period (1250-1517), when it became the uncontested center of a resurgent Islam and acquired an architectural character that symbolized the image of the Islamic city for centuries to come.

Cairo today still shines as a cultural and political center in its three spheres of influence: the Arab world, Africa, and the Islamic world. Moreover, many of its monuments (456 registered by the 1951 Survey of the Islamic Monuments of Cairo) still stand, although they remain largely unknown to the world’s architectural community and their numbers are dwindling at an exceedingly alarming pace.