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Wednesday, October 7th, 2015
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| 12:00a |
Enhancing movement with computational models It’s not every day that graduate students get to test out their research on their advisors. But MIT’s David Hill, a PhD student in media arts and sciences, builds computational models of human locomotion, which are the basis for designing ever-better prosthetics — and his advisor, Hugh Herr, an associate professor of media arts and sciences, is a double amputee.
Hill says living in the world of theoretical models can be somewhat insular, so having a real-life example of someone who can benefit from — and pilot — some of the work he does is part of what helps him stay focused.
“I don’t ever want to do research that doesn’t benefit someone else’s life directly,” Hill says.
Beyond prosthetics
Hill’s modeling work in the MIT Media Lab extends beyond the world of prosthetics; his research also supports assistive devices that can help maintain or correct the gait of people recovering from strokes, for example. Human movement is a complicated and often taxing activity, though, even for healthy people: Support from robotic wearables could also help make the work of soldiers, construction workers, and other heavy lifters less physically detrimental.
In Herr’s lab, Hill is currently working on modeling the lower extremities during walking. It sounds like a narrow project, but the lab’s focus is on creating robotic devices that mimic biological function as closely as possible. Hill’s model has to account for every minute angle and movement throughout the legs, from the hips all the way down to the joints in the foot. When completed, the model will be used to propel designs for mechanical devices for any part of the lower body, and for a myriad of uses.
Sports enthusiast
Hill’s true passion, however, is sports science. Growing up in western Tennessee, he could usually be found on the basketball court or baseball field. Although he always dreamed of becoming an athlete, he knew early on that his real talents were elsewhere.
Hill recalls a math game, played during elementary school, in which students would stand in a circle and hold up flashcards with equations for one of their classmates to solve; with every equation answered correctly, the solver could continue to progress and make his or her way around the circle. Hill would regularly complete several full rounds before being stumped — his version of sinking a foul shot in a tied basketball game with three seconds left on the clock.
“I wanted to be an athlete so badly,” Hill says. “But I knew it just wasn’t in the cards, so I decided to find another way to stay part of that world.”
Now he aims to use his computational modeling skills to build assistive devices for athletes. Whether the devices help rehabilitate injured players or mitigate some of the physical stresses of athleticism, Hill has his eye on keeping sports a regular part of his life.
From mentee to mentor
Hill attributes much of his journey toward robotics to the mentorship he received. In college, he knew what his strengths were, but not how to funnel them into something constructive. He began as a psychology major at Morehouse College in Atlanta, but — other than the one calculus requirement — felt woefully out of place. It wasn’t until a faculty advisor suggested physics that he found himself on the right path. This same advisor also led him to some of his first exposure to research, including work at Colorado State University supported by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
In an effort to provide this same support to other students — especially undergraduates at colleges with fewer resources for research — Hill splits his free time among a number of service and mentorship organizations, such as MIT’s Grad Catalyst. Through this group, Hill has traveled to colleges around the country offering guidance and insight to students who are interested in graduate school, but unsure of the best way to get there.
“I learned early on that small interactions can have a big impact on development,” Hill says.
After receiving his PhD, Hill hopes to pursue an industry job in sports science, and aspires to someday run his own company. | | 10:00a |
Alumnus Paul Modrich wins Nobel Prize in chemistry Paul Modrich, a 1968 graduate of MIT, has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on DNA repair mechanisms.
Modrich, who earned his BS in biology at MIT, is now the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine and a member of the Duke Cancer Center. He is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Modrich shares the Nobel Prize with Tomas Lindahl of the Francis Crick Institute in the United Kingdom and Aziz Sancar of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their work mapping how cells repair damaged DNA has “provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer drugs,” according to today’s Nobel Prize announcement.
DNA is under constant attack from ultraviolet radiation, free radicals, and other potential carcinogens. It also undergoes spontaneous changes as well as copying errors that occur when cells divide. To prevent their genetic material from deteriorating, cells have several systems that continuously monitor and repair DNA.
Modrich earned his one-third share of the prize for his work on a system known as “mismatch repair,” which corrects errors that occur when DNA is copied during cell division. This mechanism reduces error frequency by a factor of 1,000, and defects in this system produce the most common form of hereditary colon cancer.
The mismatch repair system essentially serves as a copyeditor to correct the rare errors made by the enzyme DNA polymerase, which is responsible for copying the bases that make up the genetic code — adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine, often abbreviated by the letters A, T, C, and G. Mistakes in this process occur at a rate of about one per every 10 million bases processed.
Modrich identified the 11 proteins that are responsible for this type of repair in the bacterium E. coli, and he later showed that humans have a similar system that consists of four proteins. Defects in any of the genes that code for these proteins can lead to cancer.
Modrich is the 28th MIT alumnus to win a Nobel Prize, and the 85th MIT-connected winner of the prize. | | 11:55a |
Online courses + time on campus = a new path to an MIT master’s degree MIT announced today a pilot program allowing learners worldwide to take a semester’s worth of courses in its top-ranked, one-year Supply Chain Management (SCM) master’s program completely online, then complete an MIT master’s degree by spending a single semester on campus.
MIT also announced a new academic credential for the digital age: the “MicroMaster’s,” which can be earned through MITx by students who pass a comprehensive examination upon the successful completion of the same semester’s worth of online SCM courses. Classes begin on Feb. 10, 2016.
The announcement was made today by MIT President L. Rafael Reif in an email to the MIT community. The pilot will be led by Professor Sanjay Sarma, MIT’s dean of digital learning, and by Professor Yossi Sheffi and Dr. Chris Caplice, who run the SCM program and its online offerings.
“The new combination of online courses and one residential semester will open the SCM program to many more learners,” says Sheffi, who is the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering. “The 50-some corporate members of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, who are deeply involved with SCM students, enthusiastically embraced this effort, owing to the worldwide talent shortage in this field.”
“I am delighted by the potential today's announcement presents to reach so many who share our passion for learning and bring them closer — whether digitally, physically, or both — to MIT,” Reif wrote.
Inverted admissions
The pilot will feature a new way of structuring admissions to a professional master’s program at MIT. Learners worldwide with access to edX can take any of the first semester’s worth of courses online. Those who do well in each course, and then score well on a subsequent comprehensive proctored examination, can earn an MITx MicroMaster’s, and their performance will significantly enhance their chances of being accepted to the full master’s program, which they can then complete in a single semester on campus.
“Inverted admission has the potential to disrupt traditional modes of access to higher education,” says Sarma, who is the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. “We’re democratizing access to a master’s program for learners worldwide.”
The MicroMaster’s will have no admissions requirements, and will be open to anyone. The coursework will be available for free. Learners can qualify for the MicroMaster’s by paying a modest fee for verified certificates and by passing a proctored exam.
For students who apply to the full master’s program and are admitted to spend a semester on campus, the MicroMaster’s will count toward a semester’s worth of MIT credit. MIT will seek to partner with companies and other organizations to offer financial support to students in need who are admitted to the SCM master’s program via the MicroMaster’s path.
“Decades ago,” Sarma says, “MIT reached students worldwide through faculty-authored textbooks. More recently, the availability of MIT course materials and lectures through OpenCourseWare and interactive courses from MITx broadened access to the Institute. Inverted admissions is the natural next step in MIT’s engagement with learners worldwide.”
Building on a strong program
MIT’s master’s program in Supply Chain Management is already global in its outlook: Its 36 to 40 students each year generally come to Cambridge from more than a dozen nations on five continents. In reputational rankings, SCM is generally regarded as the No. 1 offering in supply-chain management and logistics in the U.S.
MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics, which Sheffi also leads, has already developed and launched international programs in Colombia, Spain, and Malaysia, each offering local master’s degrees but working in concert with SCM.
The traditional SCM program — which MIT will continue to offer — is a 10-month master’s degree program designed for early-career professionals who want to return to school for advanced training in supply-chain management. It draws applicants with careers in finance, information technology, management, marketing, and sales, among other fields. Students in the program generally have three to eight years of professional experience, with an average age of 30.
Latest step in the evolution of learning
The pilot program with inverted admissions is the latest step in MIT’s expansion of online learning. In December 2011, MIT announced the launch of MITx, which offers a portfolio of MIT courses through an online, interactive learning platform. In 2012, MIT partnered with Harvard University to launch edX, which offers online learning from many universities.
“The new MicroMaster’s is an important modular credential for the digital age, and promises to serve as academic currency in a continuous, lifelong-learning world,” says Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. “It also affords an evolutionary path for universities in the face of mounting costs, and a way to leverage technology to blend online and on-campus learning pathways.”
The pilot program also builds upon the 16 recommendations made last year by the Institute-Wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education, which Reif convened in 2013 to envision the MIT of 2020 and beyond. When Reif released that panel’s final report, on Aug. 4, 2014, he wrote to the MIT community that the occasion “marks the beginning of an exciting new period of educational experimentation at MIT.” The report, he added, presented a framework for the Institute to reinvent education for learners at MIT and beyond.
“The rising cost of education, combined with the transformative potential of online teaching and learning technologies, presents a long-term challenge that no university can afford to ignore,” Reif wrote. “At MIT, we are choosing to meet this challenge directly by assessing the educational model that has served the Institute so well for so long. We are experimenting boldly with ideas to enhance the education we offer our own students and to lower the barriers to access for learners around the world.”
FAQs can be found here. | | 12:00p |
FAQs on MIT’s new path to a master’s degree This set of FAQs accompanies MIT’s Oct. 7, 2015, announcement regarding a pilot program offering a new path to a master’s degree in Supply Chain Management (SCM).
What is the news?
MIT is announcing a pilot program in its professional, one-year Supply Chain Management (SCM) master’s program in which learners can earn the full master’s degree by taking about half the course content online and half on campus. (The traditional one-year-on-campus program will continue to be offered.)
Also, MIT has created a new credential for online learners: the “MicroMaster’s,” which will be granted by MITx (MIT’s online learning initiative) to students who do exceptionally well in a given set of graduate-level online courses and do well in a subsequent exam. The credential will first be available to students who register for the SCM program’s online courses.
Is the MicroMaster’s credential a master’s degree?
No, it is a credential granted by MITx for outstanding performance in graduate-level online coursework. For many learners, it can be a step toward an MIT master’s degree.
When will the first MicroMaster’s course be offered?
February, 2016.
About the new path to a master’s degree:
Why is MIT offering this new path?
MIT is committed to finding, recognizing, and attracting exceptional students from across the globe. This new path expands access to MIT and expands our core community members’ connections to peers from around the world.
Why do you say this program features “inverted admissions”?
In traditional master’s programs, students can’t begin courses unless they are admitted. With this pilot program, students can take a semester’s worth of courses online without having to apply for admission. If they do exceptionally well in these courses, they will be considered for admission to the SCM master’s program, should they choose to apply. And admitted students will be able to use their MicroMaster’s credential as course credit for a semester’s worth of the two-semester master’s program.
What do you hope to achieve with inverted admissions?
We will give students the chance to prove they can achieve excellence in a master’s program before they have to apply for admission. This will level the playing field: Students from lesser-known universities globally will be able to prove their mettle as prospective MIT residential students.
About the new MicroMaster’s credential:
How do you plan to determine who is eligible for a MicroMaster’s?
We don’t. Anyone who successfully masters the material and receives a high passing grade on a demanding, proctored exam will earn the credential.
What will be the value of the MicroMaster’s?
We expect that this new credential will be valued by companies, and will foster career advancement for its holders.
Is it your hope that the MicroMaster’s credential becomes a new unit of currency in higher education?
Yes. If other universities wish to adopt this terminology for programs that are master’s-level, we will welcome that enthusiastically.
Do you anticipate that other universities will consider the MicroMaster’s to be convertible to course credit in their existing master’s programs?
Yes. MIT is actively talking to other universities about that question.
More on the SCM master’s program:
Will MIT still offer the traditional, one-year-on-campus SCM master’s degree?
Yes.
Will students entering MIT through this new pathway also be expected to complete the standard MIT Graduate Application?
Yes.
When will the first group of students be admitted to work toward the SCM master’s degree on campus?
We anticipate that the first students to obtain a master’s from MIT in this blended program will graduate from MIT in June 2018.
How many students do you anticipate admitting through this program?
We will likely run the program in cohorts of 30 to 40. We anticipate one cohort in the initial graduating class of 2018. As we will maintain our high standards for admissions, ultimately the number will depend on the number of qualified candidates.
About related efforts:
How will this affect edX?
The online courses will be offered on the edX platform. EdX is willing and eager to support other universities, should they choose to adopt this concept and terminology.
Will MITx still offer free courses?
Yes.
How will the online SCM coursework differ from the curriculum in the XSeries sequence in Supply Chain and Logistics Management that edX announced in fall 2013?
The passing grade for the MicroMaster’s certificate will be higher than the passing grade for the XSeries certificate. We will offer a third course in the XSeries in the summer of 2016, so that students who have taken the first course and are in the process of taking the second course can complete the XSeries. After this, we will replace the XSeries with the MicroMaster’s.
Related questions:
Will there be another course beyond SCM coming soon?
Other MIT programs are interested in participating in accelerated master’s programs. MIT’s faculty governance will determine whether and how to proceed beyond the SCM pilot program.
Will MIT Professional Education and MIT Sloan Executive Education continue?
MIT will continue to offer outstanding professional e ducation and solutions to companies, executives, and professionals.
Where can I learn more?
More information is available here. | | 5:30p |
How to bring clean, efficient energy to the world The challenges of providing clean, reliable energy, water, and food to people everywhere — and especially in parts of the developing world — is a key focus of Solve, a four-day conference taking place this week at MIT. A full day of talks, workshops, and discussions was devoted to the topic on Tuesday.
“The developing world is where growth in energy demand is going to be occurring,” said Robert Armstrong, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the Chevron Professor in Chemical Engineering, in introducing the day’s final event: a public discussion between Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of India’s Tata Group, and Robert Stoner, MITEI’s deputy director and director of MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design. Armstrong stressed that delivering clean energy in South America, Africa, and India carries great challenges — but also great opportunities to dramatically improve the quality of life for people there.
Making such progress is the aim of the Tata Center, which has carried out a series of pilot programs involving teams of MIT students working with non-governmental organizations in India. These projects have aimed to create microgrids so those in rural off-grid villages can sell electricity to their neighbors; to improve pumps for agricultural irrigation; and to develop inexpensive artificial limbs that are appropriate for local conditions.
Tata served for 21 years as chairman of Tata Sons, which controls one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates. Two philanthropic trusts established by his great-grandfather, the company’s founder, distribute about $100 million a year to support such projects, he said.
“In India, about 50 percent of the population is in the rural parts, but they are under pressure to move to urban areas,” Tata said: Those rural areas represent only 15 percent of India’s GDP. “Prosperity is moving to the cities, and rural India is lagging.”
Providing basic services such as reliable electricity could enable significant improvements in rural education, health, and agriculture. “You can’t have growth unless you have electric power,” Tata said.
India aims to electrify the entire country, but progress has been slow — in some cases amounting to “one bulb in the middle of a village,” Tata said. But really, he said, each home needs enough electricity enough to power a few lights, so schoolchildren can study after dark, and small pumps to support agriculture.
One group of MIT students sponsored by the Tata Center has worked on a project that would enable village-scale microgrids, where one resident who could afford solar panels or a diesel generator could sell excess power to neighbors. This would require power controllers that can both deliver power to devices that need it and monitor usage for billing purposes. Tests of the system last summer in one rural village “gave us a lot of confidence” that the project can move forward and have significant impact, Stoner said, adding: “We’ll try it on a very large scale in a larger village in the spring.”
Stoner added that the Tata Center’s work, while initially based in India, is intended to develop solutions that may be useful throughout the developing world. It has begun doing some work in Rwanda, also geared at improving access to power. But Stoner pointed out that solutions need to be geared to local needs and conditions. For example, he said, Rwanda “has a completely different way of handling electricity.”
The Tata Center has also worked to develop solar-powered pumps for small farms. Such pumps have tended to be much larger than is needed, since they were designed for larger agricultural operations. Making more appropriately sized pumps available — small enough to be powered by a few portable solar panels — could make irrigation much more widely available, Stoner said.
Another project has addressed the need to deal with boiler ash, a waste product from industrial boilers. Researchers are working to chemically modify this abundant material so that it could be made into bricks and other building materials, Stoner said.
Another priority is developing devices for rural health care: “I’m very excited about the work the Tata Center has done on medical devices and diagnostics,” Tata said. Simple and inexpensive diagnostic tools could go a long way toward ensuring that patients who live far from health care facilities can get appropriate and timely care, he added.
Tata said that a new culture of entrepreneurship is rapidly growing in India. “It’s a great new startup culture in India, almost reminiscent of what you saw in the U.S. in the ’70s,” he said. And it’s serious business: “It’s not about charity, it’s about doing it for profit. I think a great opportunity is there,” Tata said.
“We are at the beginning of something, and we’re looking for opportunities,” Stoner said. Given the ingenuity of the students and faculty associated with the Tata Center, he said, “There’s no end to what we can do.” | | 11:59p |
In the world: Remote Mexican village uses solar power to purify water Deep in the jungles of the Yucatan peninsula, residents of the remote Mexican village of La Mancalona are producing clean drinking water using the power of the sun.
For nearly two years now, members of the community, most of whom are subsistence farmers, have operated and maintained a solar-powered water purification system engineered by researchers at MIT.
The system consists of two solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity; these, in turn, power a set of pumps that push water through semiporous membranes in a filtration process called reverse osmosis. The setup purifies both brackish well water and collected rainwater, producing about 1,000 liters of purified water a day for the 450 residents.
The MIT team had previously demonstrated the technology’s feasibility in the lab and in the field. Now, in a study published in the journal Desalination, they report that residents of La Mancalona have successfully run the solar-powered system, having been trained by MIT researchers to operate and maintain the system. The villagers are paying the community operators for their drinking water at a price they can afford, and one that makes the system self-sustainable.
Steven Dubowsky, a professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at MIT, says the case study in La Mancalona demonstrates that with careful design and proper training, non-expert communities can independently operate high-tech systems.
“We’re using MIT intellect to produce technology systems that are of the highest quality, and we can train people to use them, and change the culture down in these poor communities,” Dubowsky says. “This is a whole new paradigm for providing clean water for people in need.”
In so many words
In 2012, Dubowsky and MIT students and research staff including Amy Bilton began designing and installing the technology, known as a photovoltaic powered reverse osmosis (PVRO); MIT researcher Huda Elasaad was central to training community residents to operate and maintain the system. A local aid organization had identified La Mancalona as a potential site for the system, as the community lacked dependable sources of clean drinking water. The region also receives ample amounts of sunshine — an ideal environment for a solar-powered system.
In installing the system, the MIT team found willing and resourceful helpers in the community.
“When you live in a very rural area, you have to do everything yourself,” Elasaad says. “Farming, if there’s something wrong with your well, you’re the one stuck fixing it, because no one’s going to drive into the jungle to help you. So they were very handy, which made it easy for us to train them.”
The main challenges in this training stemmed from the language barrier: A local aid worker typically would translate the researchers’ instructions in English into Spanish, and then into the Yucatan version of Spanish, and finally to the local indigenous dialect.
“The entire time, you’re just hoping nothing gets lost in translation,” Elasaad says. “The nice thing about technology is, it kind of speaks for itself. You can show with very easy diagrams and hands-on training, right next to them, that turning a valve doesn’t have to be said in so many words — you can just show them.”
A new economy
Since the PVRO system was installed, the village has been operating it as a business, selling 20-liter bottles of water to residents for 5 pesos — a price that the community agreed upon, and about one-tenth the price of bottled water that is intermittently supplied by a centralized facility an hour’s drive from the village.
At this price, the community reaps a profit of about 49,000 pesos, or $3,600, per year. The community has appointed a committee to manage the incoming funds, setting aside some money for maintenance and repair of the system, and investing the rest back into the community.
“They’re also trying to develop a business plan focused on selling clean water to tourists who come to the local Mayan ruins,” Elasaad says. “So it’s been interesting seeing what they’ve done with this new economy.”
She adds that the residents in La Mancalona have taken ownership of the technology, having been trained to operate it on a day-to-day basis, from changing out ultraviolet lights and filters to testing the water quality and replacing batteries. They also have a list of local suppliers for replacement parts.
Aside from the system’s economic benefits, Elasaad suspects it may also improve the residents’ health — a trend that she hopes to investigate in the future.
“Before, they couldn’t afford clean water, but they could afford soda, which was actually cheaper than bottled water in that village,” Elasaad says. “Now we see a shift: These children are drinking more water and becoming more healthy and hydrated.”
MIT’s experience in La Mancalona has spurred Dubowsky and his team to try to distribute similar solar-powered water purification systems to other communities in need, whether jungle villages or crowded cities. The system, he says, is uniquely designed to adapt to the water quality of any given region, making it flexible and affordable for a range of environments, and can utilize a variety of different water purification processes, including reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, or electrodialysis. The approach is focused on the design and control of these systems, which can enable widespread use.
“This technology would enable hotels, schools, hospitals, governments, et cetera, to produce water at a greatly reduced price,” Dubowsky says. “The technology MIT has developed is capable of producing economic value in these countries.”
This work was supported in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. |
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