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  • Courseware 
    Statistics for Brain and Cognitive Science

    Statistics for Brain and Cognitive Science

    Provides students with the basic tools for analyzing experimental data, properly interpreting statistical reports in the literature, and reasoning under uncertain situations. Topics organized around three key theories: Probability, statistical, and the linear model. Probability theory covers axioms of probability, discrete and continuous probability models, law of large numbers, and the Central Limit Theorem. Statistical theory covers estimation, likelihood theory, Bayesian methods, bootstrap and other Monte Carlo methods, as well as hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, elementary design of experiments principles and goodness-of-fit. The linear model theory covers the simple regression model and the analysis of variance. Places equal emphasis on theory, data analyses, and simulation studies.

    Subjects:
    Mathematics and Statistics and Biology
    Keywords:
    Statistics Cognitive science
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Courseware 
    Structural Mechanics

    Structural Mechanics

    This course covers the fundamental concepts of structural mechanics with applications to marine, civil, and mechanical structures. Topics include analysis of small deflections of beams, moderately large deflections of beams, columns, cables, and shafts; elastic and plastic buckling of columns, thin walled sections and plates; exact and approximate methods; energy methods; principle of virtual work; introduction to failure analysis of structures. We will include examples from civil, mechanical, offshore, and ship structures such as the collision and grounding of ships.

    Subjects:
    Structural Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
    Keywords:
    Structural analysis (Engineering)
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Courseware 
    Sustainability: Political Economy, Science, and Policy

    Sustainability: Political Economy, Science, and Policy

    This course examines alternative conceptions and theoretical underpinnings of sustainable development. It focuses on the sustainability problems of industrial countries, and of developing states and economies in transition. It also explores the sociology of knowledge regarding sustainability, the economic and technological dimensions, and institutional imperatives, along with implications for political constitution of economic performance.

    Subjects:
    Environmental Engineering, Political Science, and Social Ecology
    Keywords:
    Sustainable development
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • MOOC 
    Sustainable Building Design

    Sustainable Building Design

    Meeting growing global energy demand, while mitigating climate change and environmental impacts, requires a large-scale transition to clean, sustainable energy systems. Students and professionals around the world must prepare for careers in this future energy landscape, gaining relevant skills and knowledge to expedite the transformation in industry, government and nongovernmental organizations, academia, and nonprofits. The building sector represents a large percentage of overall energy consumption, and contributes 40% of the carbon emissions driving climate change. Yet buildings also offer opportunities for substantial, economical energy efficiency gains. From retrofit projects to new construction, buildings require a context-specific design process that integrates efficiency strategies and technologies. In this course, you'll be introduced to a range of technologies and analysis techniques for designing comfortable, resource-efficient buildings. The primary focus of this course is the study of the thermal and luminous behavior of buildings. You'll examine the basic scientific principles underlying these phenomena, and use computer-aided design software and climate data to explore the role light and energy can play in shaping architecture. These efficiency design elements are critical to the larger challenge of producing energy for a growing population while reducing carbon emissions.

    Subjects:
    Environmental Engineering, Building Services Engineering, and Building and Real Estate
    Keywords:
    Buildings -- Energy conservation Sustainable architecture Sustainable buildings -- Design construction
    Resource Type:
    MOOC
     
  • Courseware 
    System Safety

    System Safety

    This course covers important concepts and techniques in designing and operating safety-critical systems. Topics include the nature of risk, formal accident and human error models, causes of accidents, fundamental concepts of system safety engineering, system and software hazard analysis, designing for safety, fault tolerance, safety issues in the design of human-machine interaction, verification of safety, creating a safety culture, and management of safety-critical projects. Includes a class project involving the high-level system design and analysis of a safety-critical system.

    Keywords:
    System safety Industrial safety
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Courseware 
    Territory: Spatial Reification of Power

    Territory: Spatial Reification of Power

    This course proposes that investigating the ways in which territory is produced, maintained and strategized, generates conflicts, establishes divisions, and builds identities can lead to a more critical understanding of architecture's role in society. This course is designed to expand the student's literacy in the concept of territory and its relation to the realm of architecture.

    Keywords:
    Boundaries Architecture
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Courseware 
    The Anthropology of Politics: U.S. Presidential Election Edition

    The Anthropology of Politics: U.S. Presidential Election Edition

    This course examines the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing. It focuses attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, the course explores how the "universal" concept of democracy is interpreted and reworked through space and time, while examining how different cultural groups experimenting with political marketing understand the role of citizens in a democracy.

    Subjects:
    Anthropology and Political Science
    Keywords:
    Presidents -- Election United States Marketing
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Presentation 
    The Power of Competition: How to Focus the World's Brains on your Innovation Challenges

    The Power of Competition: How to Focus the World's Brains on your Innovation Challenges

    This video was recorded at MIT World Series: Back to the Classroom 2009. Cooperation may be making us "a little bit too nice" when it comes to innovation, suggests Fiona Murray. She believes there's nothing like competition for injecting energy into the process of solving key innovation problems, whether in business or society. Murray is convinced competition make ventures "more effective, more global, more inclusive and more democratic," all important dimensions for business in a flattening world. She describes the rapidly expanding R&D expenditures of India and China, including the vast numbers of Ph.D.s these nations are producing in science and engineering. The corporate sector has found building global R&D organizations and collaborations difficult. In this challenging environment, where the advantage goes to those firms snagging the best scientists, Murray believes "prizes are complementary mechanisms" for attracting global talent. Just like historic rivalries among great artists (Nb., Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese), or the race to discover the structure of DNA, "fierce competition" can yield "dramatic productivity" and innovation, especially when the right rewards are at stake. Murray cites the 18th century competition to invent a mechanism for determining a ship's longitude, which offered a 20 thousand-pound prize. She jumps to the present, with the X Prize Foundation and its various competitions to solve engineering challenges and societal problems, such as the three-person reusable spaceship, and a 100-mpg car -- each with a $10 million prize purse. But it's not just the money. Recent studies show that prizes prove alluring when they focus efforts and resources on a problem that people are already studying, offering fame and "putting fun back into innovation." The fascination skews rational calculations, with competitors often spending well beyond the amount offered to the winner. Corporations should adopt the prize mechanism, believes Murray, to help generate new ideas (such as new applications for Google's phone); or to help solve very specific problems. Campus competitions are up markedly, she notes, which might be a distraction for students at places like MIT. Start small and inside the organization first, creating a shared bulletin board and offering small prizes, she advises, which will "generate energy." Then take competition beyond the company. And don't forget, "the work must be fun" in order to "get a richer set of people to participate.

    Subjects:
    Management
    Keywords:
    Competition
    Resource Type:
    Presentation
     
    OER
  • Courseware 
    The RNA Revolution: At the Frontiers of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine

    The RNA Revolution: At the Frontiers of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine

    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.

    Subjects:
    Biology
    Keywords:
    Non-coding RNA RNA
    Resource Type:
    Courseware
     
  • Courseware 
    Transport Processes in the Environment

    Transport Processes in the Environment

    This class serves as an introduction to mass transport in environmental flows, with emphasis given to river and lake systems. The class will cover the derivation and solutions to the differential form of mass conservation equations. Class topics to be covered will include: molecular and turbulent diffusion, boundary layers, dissolution, bed-water exchange, air-water exchange and particle transport.

    Subjects:
    Environmental Engineering and Transportation
    Keywords:
    Water -- Pollution Hydrodynamics Diffusion in hydrology Oceanic mixing
    Resource Type:
    Courseware