Courses tagged with "Information environments" (128)

6.863 is a laboratory-oriented course on the theory and practice of building computer systems for human language processing, with an emphasis on the linguistic, cognitive, and engineering foundations for understanding their design.

This course studies fundamental design and implementation ideas in the engineering of operating systems. Lectures are based on a study of UNIX and research papers. Topics include virtual memory, threads, context switches, kernels, interrupts, system calls, interprocess communication, coordination, and the interaction between software and hardware. Individual laboratory assignments involve implementation of a small operating system in C, with some x86 assembly.

6.637 covers the fundamentals of optical signals and modern optical devices and systems from a practical point of view. Its goal is to help students develop a thorough understanding of the underlying physical principles such that device and system design and performance can be predicted, analyzed, and understood.

Most optical systems involve the use of one or more of the following: sources (e.g., lasers and light-emitting diodes), light modulation components (e.g., liquid-crystal light modulators), transmission media (e.g., free space or fibers), photodetectors (e.g., photodiodes, photomultiplier tubes), information storage devices (e.g., optical disk), processing systems (e.g., imaging and spatial filtering systems) and displays (LCOS microdisplays). These are the topics covered by this course.

This course is broad, covering a wide range of topics that have to do with the post-pc era of computing. It is a hands-on project course that also includes some foundational subjects. Students will program iPAQ handheld computers, cell phones (series 60 phones), speech processing, vision, Cricket location systems, GPS, and more. Most of the programming will be using Python®, but Python® can be learned and mastered during the course.

This course was also taught as part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) programme as course number SMA 5508 (Pervasive Computing).

This course examines classical and quantum models of electrons and lattice vibrations in solids, emphasizing physical models for elastic properties, electronic transport, and heat capacity. Topics covered include: crystal lattices, electronic energy band structures, phonon dispersion relatons, effective mass theorem, semiclassical equations of motion, and impurity states in semiconductors, band structure and transport properties of selected semiconductors, and connection of quantum theory of solids with quasifermi levels and Boltzmann transport used in device modeling.

This course is offered to graduates and focuses on understanding the fundamental principles of the "front-end" processes used in the fabrication of devices for silicon integrated circuits. This includes advanced physical models and practical aspects of major processes, such as oxidation, diffusion, ion implantation, and epitaxy. Other topics covered include: high performance MOS and bipolar devices including ultra-thin gate oxides, implant-damage enhanced diffusion, advanced metrology, and new materials such as Silicon Germanium (SiGe).

6.334 examines the application of electronics to energy conversion and control. Topics covered include: modeling, analysis, and control techniques; design of power circuits including inverters, rectifiers, and DC-DC converters; analysis and design of magnetic components and filters; and characteristics of power semiconductor devices. Numerous application examples will be presented such as motion control systems, power supplies, and radio-frequency power amplifiers. The course is worth 6 engineering design points.

6.821 teaches the principles of functional, imperative, and logic programming languages. Topics covered include: meta-circular interpreters, semantics (operational and denotational), type systems (polymorphism, inference, and abstract types), object oriented programming, modules, and multiprocessing. The course involves substantial programming assignments and problem sets as well as a significant amount of reading. The course uses the Scheme+ programming language for all of its assignments.

This course explores the detection and measurement of radio and optical signals encountered in communications, astronomy, remote sensing, instrumentation, and radar. Topics covered include: statistical analysis of signal processing systems, including radiometers, spectrometers, interferometers, and digital correlation systems; matched filters and ambiguity functions; communications channel performance; measurement of random electromagnetic fields, angular filtering properties of antennas, interferometers, and aperture synthesis systems; and radiative transfer and parameter estimation.

This course covers a number of advanced "selected topics" in the field of cryptography. The first part of the course tackles the foundational question of how to define security of cryptographic protocols in a way that is appropriate for modern computer networks, and how to construct protocols that satisfy these security definitions. For this purpose, the framework of "universally composable security" is studied and used. The second part of the course concentrates on the many challenges involved in building secure electronic voting systems, from both theoretical and practical points of view. In the third part, an introduction to cryptographic constructions based on bilinear pairings is given.

6.780 covers statistical modeling and the control of semiconductor fabrication processes and plants. Topics covered include: design of experiments, response surface modeling, and process optimization; defect and parametric yield modeling; process/device/circuit yield optimization; monitoring, diagnosis, and feedback control of equipment and processes; and analysis and scheduling of semiconductor manufacturing operations.

This course comprises of a seminar on planning and operation of modern electric power systems. Content varies with current interests of instructor and class; emphasis on engineering aspects, but economic issues may be examined too. Core topics include: overview of power system structure and operation; representation of components, including transmission lines, transformers, generating plants, loads; power flow analysis, dynamics and control of multimachine systems, steady-state and transient stability, system protection; economic dispatch; mobile and isolated power systems; computation and simulation.

6.301 is a course in analog circuit analysis and design. We cover the tools and methods necessary for the creative design of useful circuits using active devices. The class stresses insight and intuition, applied to the design of transistor circuits and the estimation of their performance. We concentrate on circuits using the bipolar junction transistor, but the techniques that we study can be equally applied to circuits using JFETs, MOSFETs, MESFETs, future exotic devices, or even vacuum tubes.

6.541J surveys the structural properties of natural languages, with special emphasis on the sound pattern. Topics covered include: representation of the lexicon; physiology of speech production; articulatory phonetics; acoustical theory of speech production; acoustical and articulatory descriptions of phonetic features and of prosodic aspects of speech; perception of speech; models of lexical access and of speech production and planning; and applications to recognition and generation of speech by machine, and to the study of speech disorders.

This course examines the fundamentals of detection and estimation for signal processing, communications, and control. Topics covered include: vector spaces of random variables; Bayesian and Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing; Bayesian and nonrandom parameter estimation; minimum-variance unbiased estimators and the Cramer-Rao bounds; representations for stochastic processes, shaping and whitening filters, and Karhunen-Loeve expansions; and detection and estimation from waveform observations. Advanced topics include: linear prediction and spectral estimation, and Wiener and Kalman filters.

This course surveys techniques to fabricate and analyze submicron and nanometer structures, with applications. Optical and electron microscopy is reviewed. Additional topics that are covered include: surface characterization, preparation, and measurement techniques, resist technology, optical projection, interferometric, X-ray, ion, and electron lithography; Aqueous, ion, and plasma etching techniques; lift-off and electroplating; and ion implantation. Applications in microelectronics, microphotonics, information storage, and nanotechnology will also be explored.

Acknowledgements

The Instructors would like to thank Bob Barsotti, Bryan Cord, and Ben Wunsch for their work on the Atomic Force Microscope video. They would also like to thank Bryan Cord for creating each video.

This course is offered to graduates and includes topics such as mathematical models of systems from observations of their behavior; time series, state-space, and input-output models; model structures, parametrization, and identifiability; non-parametric methods; prediction error methods for parameter estimation, convergence, consistency, and asymptotic distribution; relations to maximum likelihood estimation; recursive estimation; relation to Kalman filters; structure determination; order estimation; Akaike criterion; bounded but unknown noise model; and robustness and practical issues.

6.825 is a graduate-level introduction to artificial intelligence. Topics covered include: representation and inference in first-order logic, modern deterministic and decision-theoretic planning techniques, basic supervised learning methods, and Bayesian network inference and learning.

This course was also taught as part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) programme as course number SMA 5504 (Techniques in Artificial Intelligence).

This course is an introduction to the theory that tries to explain how minds are made from collections of simpler processes. It treats such aspects of thinking as vision, language, learning, reasoning, memory, consciousness, ideals, emotions, and personality. It incorporates ideas from psychology, artificial intelligence, and computer science to resolve theoretical issues such as wholes vs. parts, structural vs. functional descriptions, declarative vs. procedural representations, symbolic vs. connectionist models, and logical vs. common-sense theories of learning.

6.933J / STS.420J provides an integrated approach to engineering practice in the real world. Students of 6.933J / STS.420J research the life cycle of a major engineering project, new technology, or startup company from multiple perspectives: technical, economic, political, and cultural. Research involves interviewing inventors, reading laboratory notebooks, evaluating patents, and looking over the shoulders of engineers as they developed today's technologies. This subject is for students who recognize that technical proficiency alone is only part of the formula for success in technology.