Online courses directory (2511)
This subject is on regional energy-environmental modeling rather than on general energy-environmental policies, but the models should have some policy relevance. We will start with some discussion of green accounting issues; then, we will cover a variety of theoretical and empirical topics related to spatial energy demand and supply, energy forecasts, national and regional energy prices, and environmental implications of regional energy consumption and production. Where feasible, the topics will have a spatial dimension. This is a new seminar, so we expect students to contribute material to the set of readings and topics covered during the semester.
The seminar is designed to provide advanced graduate students with a thorough understanding of selected regional economic theories and techniques and with experience in using alternative socioeconomic impact assessment models and related regional techniques on microcomputers. Discussions will be held on particular theoretical modeling and economic issues; linkages among theories, accounts, and policies; relationships between national and regional economic structures; and methods of adjusting and estimating regional input-output accounts and tables. Examples from the Boston area and other U.S. cities/regions will be used to illustrate points throughout the seminar. We will also examine how such models are used in other countries. New material on analyzing regional development issues will be covered.
The seminar is designed to provide advanced graduate students with a thorough understanding of selected regional economic theories and techniques and with experience in using alternative socioeconomic impact assessment models and related regional techniques on microcomputers. Discussions will be held on particular theoretical modeling and economic issues; linkages among theories, accounts, and policies; relationships between national and regional economic structures; and methods of adjusting and estimating regional input-output accounts and tables. Examples from the Boston area and other U.S. cities/regions will be used to illustrate points throughout the seminar. We will also examine how such models are used in other countries. New material on analyzing regional development issues will be covered.
This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building relational machines through a combination of studio-style design and critique along with lecture, lively discussion of course readings, and assignments. Insights from social psychology, human-computer interaction, and design will be examined, as well as how these ideas are manifest in a broad range of applications for software agents and robots.
8.323, Relativistic Quantum Field Theory I, is a one-term self-contained subject in quantum field theory. Concepts and basic techniques are developed through applications in elementary particle physics, and condensed matter physics.
This course is the second course of the quantum field theory trimester sequence beginning with Relativistic Quantum Field Theory I (8.323) and ending with Relativistic Quantum Field Theory III (8.325). It develops in depth some of the topics discussed in 8.323 and introduces some advanced material.
This course is the third and last term of the quantum field theory sequence. Its aim is the proper theoretical discussion of the physics of the standard model. Topics include: quantum chromodynamics; the Higgs phenomenon and a description of the standard model; deep-inelastic scattering and structure functions; basics of lattice gauge theory; operator products and effective theories; detailed structure of the standard model; spontaneously broken gauge theory and its quantization; instantons and theta-vacua; topological defects; introduction to supersymmetry.
This course, which concentrates on special relativity, is normally taken by physics majors in their sophomore year. Topics include Einstein's postulates, the Lorentz transformation, relativistic effects and paradoxes, and applications involving electromagnetism and particle physics. This course also provides a brief introduction to some concepts of general relativity, including the principle of equivalence, the Schwartzschild metric and black holes, and the FRW metric and cosmology.
This course introduces the history of Islamic cultures through their most vibrant material signs: the religious architecture that spans fourteen centuries and three continents — Asia, Africa, and Europe. The course presents Islamic architecture both as a historical tradition and as a cultural catalyst that influenced and was influenced by the civilizations with which it came in contact.
The Renaissance has justly become both famous and notorious as an age of discovery, and its voyages took place in many realms. This semester, we will read several history making narratives of early modern travel: first-hand accounts of discovery, captivity, conquest, or cultural encounter. As Europeans came to acquire experience of unfamiliar places, literary texts of the period began to assimilate this experience by describing imagined voyages across real or fantastic landscapes. Finally, voyages of exploration served Renaissance writers as a metaphor: for intellectual inquiry, for spiritual development, or for the pursuit of love. Among the literary genres sampled this semester will be sonnets, plays, prose narratives, utopias, and chivalric romance. Authors and travellers will include Francis Petrarch, Amerigo Vespucci, Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Hernán Cortés, John Donne, Francis Drake, Mary Rowlandson, Francis Bacon.
This course provides an introduction to major political, social, cultural and intellectual changes in Europe from the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy around 1300 to the outbreak of the French Revolution at the end of the 1700s. It focuses on the porous boundaries between categories of theology, magic and science, as well as print. It examines how developments in these areas altered European political institutions, social structures, and cultural practices. It also studies men and women, nobles and commoners, as well as Europeans and some non-Europeans with whom they came into contact.
This course develops skills in research design for policy analysis and planning. The emphasis is on the logic of the research process and its constituent elements. The course relies on a seminar format so students are expected to read all of the assigned materials and come to class prepared to discuss key themes, ideas, and controversies. Since the materials draw broadly on the social sciences, and since students have diverse interests and methodological preferences, ongoing themes in our discussions will be linking concepts to planning scholarship in general and considering how different epistemological orientations and methodological techniques map on to planning specializations.
STS.467 examines the intellectual foundations of archaeology in the deep sea. The course explores the current convergence of oceanography, archaeology, and engineering which allows scientists to discover, survey, and excavate shipwrecks in deep water with robots and submarines. The course seeks to address the following questions: How are new devices best employed for archaeological work? How do new capabilities (e.g. higher frequencies, higher resolution, all digital data output) change operations plans and research designs? What new technologies will be required? Area studies focus on the Aegean in Minoan times and western Sicily during Phoenician, Greek, and Roman hegemony.
Business organizations and markets use a bewildering variety of structures to coordinate the productive activities of their stakeholders. Dramatic changes in information technology and the nature of economic competition are forcing firms to come up with new ways of organizing work. This course uses economic theory to investigate the roles of information and technology in the existing diversity of organizations and markets and in enabling the creating of new organizational forms.
Doctoral level seminar in system dynamics modeling with a focus on social, economic and technical systems. The course covers classic works in dynamic modeling from various disciplines and current research problems and papers. Participants critique theories and models, often including replication, testing, and improvement of various models.
Seminar participants and invited guests will lead critical discussions of current literature and ongoing research. Each student will be responsible for identifying, reviewing, and presenting one structured discussion of articles from the current literature that are relevant to their research topic. The remaining time will be spent working on individual projects or thesis proposals. This fall, the seminar will focus on the following core issues that underlie most implementations of urban information systems and decision support tools: the sustainable acquisition and representation of urban knowledge; the emergent technological infrastructure for supporting metropolitan decision-making; and the innovative organizational and institutional arrangements that can take advantage of modern urban information systems.
ArcGIS/ArcMap/ArcInfo Graphical User Interface is the intellectual property of ESRI and is used herein with permission. Copyright © ESRI. All rights reserved.
In this seminar, students will design and perfect a digital environment to house the activities of large-scale organizations of people making bottom-up decisions, such as with citizen-government affairs, voting corporate shareholders or voting members of global non-profits and labor unions. A working Open Source prototype created last semester will be used as the starting point, featuring collaborative filtering and electronic agent technology pioneered at the Media Lab. This course focuses on development of online spaces as part of an interdependent human environment, including physical architectures, mapped work processes and social/political dimensions.
A cross-disciplinary approach will be taken; students with background in architecture, urban planning, law, cognition, business, digital media and computer science are encouraged to participate. No prior technical knowledge is necessary, though a rudimentary understanding of web page creation is helpful.
This series of research talks by members of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences introduces students to different approaches to the study of the brain and mind.
Topics include:
- From Neurons to Neural Networks
- Prefrontal Cortex and the Neural Basis of Cognitive Control
- Hippocampal Memory Formation and the Role of Sleep
- The Formation of Internal Modes for Learning Motor Skills
- Look and See: How the Brain Selects Objects and Directs the Eyes
- How the Brain Wires Itself
