From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Wed Jan 2 16:24:24 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:24:24 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Maguire and Cooper on Fantasy, Niyogi on Computational Language Learning Message-ID: <121624.OYTLGBDP@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 19 | January 3, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE WRITING OF FANTASY] Roger Sutton moderates this disucssion between Gregory Maguire and Susan Cooper, on writing fantasy for children and adults. SPEAKERS: Gregory Maguire Author Susan Cooper Author Roger Sutton Editor in Chief, The Horn Book and Author PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "When I sense I'm approaching a story that's going to have to be told in a fantastic way, it is usually because it's about something so upsetting to me that I wouldn't trust myself to write about it in a naturalistic way." -- Gregory Maguire EVENT HOST: Office of Government and Community Relations ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE COMPUTATIONAL NATURE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING] In part 3 of this symposium Partha Niyogi discusses his research on language learning and how the principles of natural selection and variation in a population come into play not only when exploring how children learn language but how languages alter over time. SPEAKER: Partha Niyogi Professor, Department of Computer Science, Statistics and the Physical Science Collegiate Division University of Chicago PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "Go back 1000 years and look at English. English used to have different parameter settings: 'Now I will also the great Alexander considering be.'...They were speaking a language that is unrecognizable to us today." -- Partha Niyogi EVENT HOST: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT Communications Forum presents Games and Civic Engagement A Panel Discussion featuring * Eric Klopfer * Ian Bogost * Mario Armstrong ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World is a project of the School of Engineering's Professional Education Programs. SPONSORS Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services IS&T - DCAD Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professional Education Programs 77 Massachusetts Avenue 35-433 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20080102/f7a6f1f3/attachment.htm From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Wed Jan 9 12:19:41 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:19:41 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Reed on Bioelectronic Interfaces, Tenenbaum on Language Learnability Message-ID: <191219.VKKXHKWV@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 20 | January 8, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE NEXT FRONTIER: BIOELECTRONIC INTERFACES] SPEAKER: Mark A. Reed Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering and Applied Science Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Associate Director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering, Yale University PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "We want to...create integrated circuits that will interface to biotype systems." -- Mark A. Reed EVENT HOST: Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [EXPLORATIONS IN LANGUAGE LEARNABILITY USING PROBABILISTIC GRAMMARS AND CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH] SPEAKER: Joshua Tenenbaum Paul E. Newton Career Development Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "Most traditional learnability analyses consider what an ideal learner gets from an ideal corpus of some sort. Ultimately, we want to know what can a real child learn from real data. If we have this, we'd have a powerful tool for diagnosing what goes in Universal Grammar from looking at behavior." -- Joshua Tenenbaum EVENT HOST: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT Energy Initiative Colloquium presents Sir Nicholas Stern Professor of Economics, London School of Economics Climate Change: The Economics of and Prospects for a Global Deal ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPONSORS Office of the President Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services (AMPS) MIT Libraries Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD), MIT Information Services and Technology Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: Publisher MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue 32-278 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20080109/1ddeba54/attachment.htm From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Fri Jan 11 10:45:23 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:45:23 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Tegmark on Cosmology, Perrow on Catastrophe Message-ID: <1111045.CTPJOQTM@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 21 | January 11, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE SECOND LAW AND COSMOLOGY] SPEAKER: Max Tegmark Associate Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, MIT PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "If what we can observe here requires much more bits to describe than a complete mathematical description of the world that we can put on T-shirt, than we're in some kind of multiverse, or some much larger reality than what we can observe." -- Max Tegmark EVENT HOST: Department of Mechanical Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE NEXT CATASTROPHE: REDUCING OUR VULNERABILITIES TO NATURAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND TERRORIST DISASTERS] SPEAKER: Charles B. Perrow Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "Instead of a Department of Homeland Security, we could have a Department of Homeland Vulnerabilities. ... 90% of DHS money on terrorism goes to airport security. I'm much more worried about chemical plants and tank cars and dams and levees. An earthquake in California could (turn) the Sacramento Valley into the largest soup bowl in the nation." -- Charles B. Perrow EVENT HOST: Program in Science, Technology and Society ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT Center for Global Change Science and MIT Earth Systems Initiative present Roger Angel Director Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory University of Arizona Solar Energy as a Major Replacement for Fossil Fuel ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [SPONSORED LINK] Dip into MIT's January Learning Fest Take part in MIT's winter tradition to refresh your intellectual curiosity or learn new skills through Do-It-Yourself Independent Activities Period (IAP), a Web feature created by the MIT Alumni Association. * Watch a student video on how to solve a Rubik's Cube * Discover 2.009 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle inventions * Tame your Crackberrry tendencies after viewing an MIT World video * Explore the provocative Visualizing Cultures images in OpenCourseWare * Check out the future of fusion energy. Start your virtual IAP experience by exploring these areas ? Managing Your Life, Energy and Environment, MIT's Global Reach, and Just for Fun ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPONSORS Office of the President Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services (AMPS) MIT Libraries Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD), MIT Information Services and Technology Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: Publisher MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue 32-278 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20080111/6a2c9ed6/attachment.htm From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Wed Jan 16 12:18:38 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:18:38 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Paul Farmer on Global Health, Lasnik and Uriagereka on Syntax Message-ID: <1161218.IWEXCQIA@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 22 | January 16, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [GLOBAL HEALTH EQUITY] For the past 20 years, Paul Farmer has been toppling orthodoxies concerning the delivery of health care to people of developing nations, and to our country's inner city poor. In a talk full of insights and anecdotes, Farmer brings his audience up to date on his groundbreaking work and methods. SPEAKER: Paul Farmer Founder, Partners in Health Associate Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "There's a whole set of arguments against doing the right thing that I regard as absurd. The chief barrier to advancing this is nay-saying, low expectations, a constant undertow of censorious opinion. As if it weren't hard enough to do the work, you have to fight a lot of skepticism, not from the patients, or family members, or coworkers, but from your peers." -- Paul Farmer EVENT HOST: School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [STRUCTURE DEPENDENCE, THE RATIONAL LEARNER, AND PUTNAM'S SANE PERSON] In part 5 of the symposium series Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong? Lasnik proposes a twist on Chomsky's classic doctrine: maybe grammar doesn't have to be innate after all, because it turns out that people can actually learn phrase structure rules. If these rules are fundamental to language, Uriagereka asks, shouldn't we also look for them in other aspects of intelligent human communication, such as music and mathematics? SPEAKER: Howard Lasnik Distinguished University Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland SPEAKER: Juan Uriagereka Professor of Linguistics, University of Maryland PLAY NOW: EVENT HOST: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT Libraries presents Open Science and Scientific Publishing A panel discussion featuring * Hal Abelson MIT Professor of Computer Science and Engineering * John Wilbanks Vice President, Science Commons * Anna Gold Head Librarian, MIT Engineering and Science Libraries ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [SPONSORED LINK] Dip into MIT's January Learning Fest Take part in MIT's winter tradition to refresh your intellectual curiosity or learn new skills through Do-It-Yourself Independent Activities Period (IAP), a Web feature created by the MIT Alumni Association. * Watch a student video on how to solve a Rubik's Cube * Discover 2.009 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle inventions * Tame your Crackberrry tendencies after viewing an MIT World video * Explore the provocative Visualizing Cultures images in OpenCourseWare * Check out the future of fusion energy. Start your virtual IAP experience by exploring these areas -- Managing Your Life, Energy and Environment, MIT's Global Reach, and Just for Fun ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPONSORS Office of the President Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services (AMPS) MIT Libraries Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD), MIT Information Services and Technology Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: Publisher MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue 32-278 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20080116/8331e943/attachment.htm From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Thu Jan 24 09:11:31 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:11:31 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Chomsky on Language Faculty, Kim on Global Health Message-ID: <124911.SLFVEXPG@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 23 | January 24, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE BIOLOGY OF THE LANGUAGE FACULTY: ITS PERFECTION, PAST AND FUTURE] SPEAKER: Noam Chomsky Institute Professor; Professor of Linguistics PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "The theory of a genetic endowment...Universal Grammar...is often called a controversial hypothesis, but the alternative is magic." -- Noam Chomsky EVENT HOST: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [BRIDGING THE DELIVERY GAP TO GLOBAL HEALTH] SPEAKER: Jim Yong Kim Co-Founder, Partners in Health Professor, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School Chief, Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "We can't live up to the Harvard Medical School mission statement -- to create and nurture a community of the best people committed to leadership in alleviating human suffering caused by disease -- just being in the lab, or doing clinical research. We must now build functioning health care systems everywhere in world." -- Jim Yong Kim EVENT HOST: MIT Sloan School of Management ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT Museum Soap Box Series presents James Morash MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Advancements in Underwater Vehicles: Responding to Current Environmental Issues ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [SPONSORED LINK] Dip into MIT's January Learning Fest Take part in MIT's winter tradition to refresh your intellectual curiosity or learn new skills through Do-It-Yourself Independent Activities Period (IAP), a Web feature created by the MIT Alumni Association. * Watch a student video on how to solve a Rubik's Cube * Discover 2.009 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle inventions * Tame your Crackberrry tendencies after viewing an MIT World video * Explore the provocative Visualizing Cultures images in OpenCourseWare * Check out the future of fusion energy. Start your virtual IAP experience by exploring these areas -- Managing Your Life, Energy and Environment, MIT's Global Reach, and Just for Fun ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPONSORS Office of the President Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services (AMPS), MIT Libraries Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD), MIT Information Services and Technology Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: Publisher MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue 32-278 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20080124/965fc504/attachment.htm From MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU Thu Jan 31 08:40:26 2008 From: MIT.WORLD at MIT.EDU (MIT.WORLD) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:40:26 -0500 Subject: [Mitworld] New: Friedman's The World is Flat 3.0, Nocera on Saving the Planet Message-ID: <131840.VWGFMSYQ@MIT.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MIT World - Newsletter - Volume 7 | Number 24 | January 31, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - View the latest additions to MIT World: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [THE WORLD IS FLAT 3.0] Tom Frieedman returned to MIT for OpenCourseWare's "Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds" Milestone Celebration and discussed the updated version of "The World is Flat" in this keynote presentation. SPEAKER: Thomas L. Friedman Foreign Affairs Columnist, The New York Times Author PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "The global economy is like a monster truck with the gas pedal stuck and we have lost the key. The only way we're going to catch that truck is with a disruptive breakthrough. We need a completely different mix of standards, regulations, and taxes, that will trigger that disruption. It's why my fundamental rule is change your leaders, not your light bulbs. If you don't change the leaders who write the rules, who trigger the innovations, we are cooked." -- Thomas L. Friedman EVENT HOST: OpenCourseWare ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [WHALES TO WOOD, WOOD TO COAL/OIL -- WHAT'S NEXT?] And speaking of disruptive breakthroughs, Nocera presents his ideas on saving the planet -- to emulate photosynthesis -- and convert the energy of the sun to fuel. SPEAKER: Daniel Nocera W. M. Keck Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry PLAY NOW: [QUOTE] "The carbon neutral energy solution involves light capture and conversion with materials and storage in bonds." -- Daniel Nocera EVENT HOST: Center for Global Change Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory presents Pamela Samuelson Professor of Information Management and of Law University of California at Berkeley A Reverse Notice and Takedown Regime to Enable Public Interest Uses of Technically Protected Copyrighted Works ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [SPONSORED LINK] MIT Sloan Management Review Innovating in a Globalized World >From the world's leading management thinkers, teachers, and writers MIT Sloan Management Review brings you research, ideas and opinions on the state of management practice today. From fascinating research on the powerful global companies of the moment, to thoughtful and considered essays and opinions, The Review provides a substantive, invaluable look ahead to the coming changes in the practice of management. "Clearly you are staking out the high ground as the leading journal for business innovation." Sign up for the free MIT SMR e-newsletter and receive "Strategic Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid" free. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPONSORS Office of the President Office of the Provost Office of the Vice President for Research School of Architecture and Planning School of Engineering School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences MIT Sloan School of Management School of Science MIT Alumni Association Industrial Liaison Program Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation PARTNERS Academic Media Production Services (AMPS), MIT Libraries Departmental Consulting and Application Development (DCAD), MIT Information Services and Technology Akamai Technologies RiverRun Media Send comments to: Publisher MIT World Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue 32-278 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/ --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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