To provide instruction and dialog on practical ethical issues relating to the responsible conduct of human and animal research in the brain and cognitive sciences. Specific emphasis will be placed on topics relevant to young researchers including data handling, animal and human subjects, misconduct, mentoring, intellectual property, and publication.

2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's astonishing sightings of features on the moon, stars, and moons around Jupiter that no one had seen before. Recreate these new ways of seeing and exploring from the materials and techniques Galileo had on hand, while you reflect on the times and works of Galileo. What was it like to improvise new ways of seeing and exploring from the materials and techniques on hand? What do we notice? What surprises us? How can we relate to past experience and ideas? What are we curious to research? How does our experimenting grow into our learning? Let your own curiosity drive your explorations.

Small group study of advanced subjects under staff supervision. For graduate students wishing to pursue further study in advanced areas of urban studies and city and regional planning not covered in regular subjects of instruction. The course is an introduction to the approach of Reflective Practice developed by Donald SchĚŚn. It is an approach that enables professionals to understand how they use their knowledge in practical situations and how they can combine practice and learning in a more effective way. Through greater awareness of how they deploy their knowledge in practical situations, professionals can increase their capacities of learning in a more timely way. Understanding how they frame situations and ideas helps professionals to achieve greater flexibility and increase their capacity of conceptual innovation. The objective of the course is to introduce students to the approach and methods of reflective practice by raising their awareness about their own cognitive resources and how they use them in their practice. The course will introduce theories of learning, knowledge generation, framing and reframing, theories of action, reflection-in-practice, and conceptual innovation, and provide students with opportunities to experiment with these theories in real life through practical exercises in which they reflect on real situations that they have faced in their past professional experience. Through these practical exercises, students will have the opportunity to reflect on their thinking capacities in the context of their practice.

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

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.

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.

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.

A three-semester subject sequence on quantum field theory stressing the relativistic quantum field theories relevant to the physics of the Standard Model. 8.323 is a one-semester self-contained subject in quantum field theory. Concepts and basic techniques are developed through applications in elementary particle physics and condensed matter physics. Includes the basic tools of field theory required for phenomenological studies. Topics: Functional integral formulation of quantum mechanics and many-particle systems. Classical field theory, symmetries, and Noether's theorem. Quantization of scalar fields. Feynman graphs, analytic properties of amplitudes and unitarity of the S-matrix. Renormalization and renormalization group. Spinors and the Dirac equation. Quantization of Dirac fields. Supersymmetry. Quantization of abelian gauge fields. Calculations in quantum electrodynamics. Classical Yang-Mills fields. The Higgs phenomenon and a description of the Standard Model. 8.324 is the second term of the quantum field theory sequence. Develops in depth some of the topics discussed in 8.323 and introduces some advanced material. Topics: Quantization of nonabelian gauge theories. BRST symmetry. Perturbation theory anomalies. Renormalization and symmetry breaking. The renormalization group. Critical exponents and scalar field theory. Conformal field theory. 8.325 is the third and last term of the quantum field theory sequence. Its aim is the proper theoretical discussion of the physic

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.

Normally taken by physics majors in their sophomore year. Einstein's postulates; consequences for simultaneity, time dilation, length contraction, clock synchronization; Lorentz transformation; relativistic effects and paradoxes; Minkowski diagrams; invariants and four-vectors; momentum, energy and mass; particle collisions. Relativity and electricity; Coulomb's law; magnetic fields. Brief introduction to Newtonian cosmology. Introduction to some concepts of General Relativity; principle of equivalence. The Schwarzchild metric; gravitational red shift, particle and light trajectories, geodesics, Shapiro delay. 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.

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. Studies a number of representative examples from the House of the Prophet to the present in conjunction with their social, political, and intellectual environments. Presents Islamic architecture both as a full-fledged historical tradition and as a dynamic and interactive cultural catalyst that influenced and was influenced by the civilizations with which it came in contact.

European history from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century. Consideration of political, social, artistic, and scientific developments during this period of transition to the modern world. Examines the connections between Renaissance Humanism and the Protestant and Catholic reform movements of the sixteenth century. Studies works by Petrarch, Machiavelli, Brunelleschi, Leonardo, Erasmus, More, Luther, and Montaigne. The "Renaissance" as a phenomenon in European history is best understood as a series of social, political, and cultural responses to an intellectual trend which began in Italy in the fourteenth century. This intellectual tendency, known as humanism, or the studia humanitatis, was at the heart of developments in literature, the arts, the sciences, religion, and government for almost three hundred years. In this class, we will highlight the history of humanism, but we will also study religious reformations, high politics, the agrarian world, and European conquest and expansion abroad in the period.

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, HernĚÁn CortĚŠs, John Donne, Francis Drake, Mary Rowlandson, Francis Bacon.

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.

Examines the intellectual foundations of the new discipline of deep sea archaeology, a convergence of oceanography, archaeology, and engineering. How best are robots and submarines employed for archaeological work? How do new technologies change operations plans, research designs, and archaeological questions? Covers oceanography, history and technology of underwater vehicles, search strategies, technology development, archaeological technique, sociology of scientific knowledge. Case studies of deep-sea projects include the wrecks of the Titanic and Monitor, Roman trading vessels in the Mediterranean, and deep research in the Black Sea.

Builds upon relevant economic theories and methodologies to analyze the changes in organization and markets enabled by Information Technology, especially the Internet. Typical perspectives examined include industrial organization and competitive behavior, price theory, information economics, intangible asset valuation, consumer behavior, search and choice, auctions and mechanism design, transactions cost economics and incomplete contracts theory, and design of empirical studies. Extensive reading and discussion of research literature aimed at exploring the application of these theories to business issues and challenges raised by the Internet and related technologies. 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.

Advanced seminar extends computer and analytic skills developed in the other subjects in this sequence into a research environment. Students present a structured discussion of a journal article representative of current research in Planning Decision Support Systems, and complete an approved short research project. Suggested research projects include topics related to ongoing research projects of the Computer Resource Laboratory. 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.

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"