http://mitworld.mit.edu/ MIT World media. en-us Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:03:12 GMT Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/718 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/718 The collapse of print and other traditional news and the rise of celebrity culture have contributed to the sharp decline of in-depth stories involving race and society, say these two speakers, in a discussion that’s replete with personal anecdote.

Juan Williams sets out detailing his childhood dreams to break into the newspaper business. He read all the New York papers for baseball coverage, “and noticed no people of color telling their stories … The absence struck me.” From prep school through college, Williams found internships at progressively larger papers, which had at most a handful of black reporters, and often denied those the right to bylines. But the turmoil of the ‘60s, recalls Williams, led to a wave of more militant black journalists who demanded respect and greater attention to their own communities.

In spite of some gains, Williams does not see signs of great progress over the years. President Obama’s election may have led to more African-American commentators, but Williams is the only regular person of color on Washington’s Sunday morning talk shows, which he describes as “conversations among elite white males.” Nor are there African-American anchors: “It always comes down to, ‘Is the audience going to relate to a black male as lead dog?’”

Williams deplores the “pandering” that big media institutions engage in with people of color. An executive at a black cable network, rejecting the idea of a news show, told Williams that the black men “who would identify with you like to watch sports and pornography…” Magazines like Ebony, Jet, and Essence focus on the “fabulously rich singer or superstar,” and avoid discussing the nation’s social and economic crises. There’s “no investment of money, or placing journalists in a position to tell you critical stories … to find the political power players who have their fingers on the levers causing distress in lower income communities. It doesn’t exist.”

J. Phillip Thompson believes that the waning of local newspapers like New York’s Amsterdam News marks the end of one of the last resources communities of color have to learn about issues affecting them. As a former public housing manager in New York, he knows the importance of reporters scrutinizing the words and actions of politicians. Now “I’ll read about a shooting in a mainstream newspaper. But the voice of community and debates I heard all the time I don’t read about.”

He traces a class divide in black America today that’s different from previous incarnations. For instance, black officials representing majority black districts “don’t want issues, don’t want people excited.” Elected leadership, he says, is not focused on addressing “fundamental problems like jobs, the fact that people can’t pay mortgages, raise families. Instead of dealing with that, officials move onto other issues like Skip Gates being arrested off of his porch. That’s unfortunate, but it’s just not a vital issue in black America.” ]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/719 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/719 Paula Apsell, NOVA's senior executive producer laments the sad state of science journalism and discusses how NOVA is more essential than ever. In a world where the public understanding of science is diminishing, she makes a strong case for NOVA's tradition of depth and substance, tackling the most pressing issues in science, in a thoughtful and visually complex manner.

Apsell brings clips from some recent NOVA programs to illustrate the role of television's most prestigious science documentary series in the vast television and web content landscape. She provides insights into the editorial processes of topic selection, treatment, and production standards. In a world of decreasing attention spans, Apsell considers the challenges of providing meaningful science content, keeping it interesting, while not leaving the audience behind.

]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/717 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/717 Who knew that one of mankind’s greatest scientists also worked as a gumshoe on London’s mean streets, or that this same absent-minded professor helped England fix its monetary policy from an office in the Tower of London? Thomas Levenson brings all sorts of surprises to light in his own sleuthing of a little known but significant episode in British history involving Sir Isaac Newton -- subject of his recent book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist.

Levenson stumbled onto his story while working on a larger history of science: He read a letter in Newton’s files from a “human voice in desperation:” William Chaloner, stuck in Newgate Jail in 1699, facing the gallows for treason (counterfeiting). Levenson was unable to link together this unlikely pair for a decade, until he struck gold in a stash of 400 documents signed by Newton while he served as a civil servant in the British Mint.

The tale Levenson pieced together follows Chaloner from his rural origins to a cunning criminal career in plague-stricken 17th century London, as well as Newton’s passage from world-renowned natural philosopher in isolated Cambridge University, to a promised sinecure in the Royal Mint. The tale of their intertwined fates illuminates a time when science was beginning to make its mark not just on the intelligentsia, but on all of society. Levenson describes how the scientific revolution meant “a much broader change in thinking,” new ways of problem-solving that gave even common people a leg up.

Newton entered his second career in London to find the English currency in a state of crisis: rampant counterfeiting, as well as the loss of silver from existing currency. One of the geniuses behind this state of affairs was Chaloner, who had come to “coining” by way of such money-making schemes as pornographic watches. Levenson describes “Newton’s mind at work” as he builds chains of evidence and pursues his prey with elaborate traps, including informants and double agents placed in counterfeiting gangs.

Levenson finds “evidence of Newton’s ruthlessness,” as he brings Chaloner to the gibbet with a case that “was rhetorical and persuasive more than precisely accurate.” In their calculation and drive, both men somehow captured the new scientific spirit of the times. Says Levenson, “When big ideas happen, they don’t just happen in own spheres. There’s an effect that spreads well beyond them. And if they matter to the way people lead their lives, then people will find out about them and do things with them...” ]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/716 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/716 In welcoming President Obama, MIT President
Susan Hockfield summarizes the vast array of energy innovation at MIT, including the MIT Energy Initiative and the student-led 1700 member Energy Club, and declares, "We share President Obama's view that clean energy is the defining challenge of this era."

In his introduction of President Obama, Professor Ernest Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discusses global issues on clean energy, science and innovation, and credits Obama for expanding the nation's energy vision.

Barack Obama came to MIT not just to praise the Institute's leading edge energy research but to encourage all of America’s “heirs to a legacy of innovation” in their pursuit of discovery. The nation owes much of its prosperity to risk-takers and entrepreneurs, Obama said, and now, given the linked challenges of energy and climate change, we need such pioneers more than ever.

After visiting MIT labs working on more efficient solar cells and lighting, batteries “that aren’t built, but grown,” and offshore wind plants that function even when the air is still, Obama told a large crowd that as the nation inevitably transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we’re counting on the kind of “innovative potential on display at MIT.”

Obama acknowledges the great challenges facing energy researchers and entrepreneurs. As traditional energy supplies become more precious, and energy demands grow, nations are competing to develop new ways to produce and use energy, said Obama, and the winner will lead the global economy. “I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.”

His administration’s response has been to make massive investments in both clean energy and basic science. Obama aims these efforts at both the current recession, and the nation’s future economic health. Clean energy jobs today and research “to produce the technologies of tomorrow” will “lay a new foundation for lasting prosperity.” He hopes this comprehensive approach will culminate in legislation that will transform America’s entire energy system.

But Obama is under no delusion that all will embrace his plan. “The closer we get,” says Obama, the “more we’ll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to that much-needed action we’re engaged in.” What worries the president more, though, is a dangerous pessimism shared by many, “that our politics are too broken and our people too unwilling to make hard choices for us to actually deal with this energy issue.” Implicit in this argument, he says, is that America has lost its fighting spirit.

Obama rejects this argument “because of what I’ve seen here at MIT … and because of what we know we are capable of achieving when called upon ….” The nation that harnessed electricity and the atom is one that has always sought out new frontiers, “and this generation is no different.” Obama invokes the achievements of the past as a call to arms “in what is sure to be a difficult fight in the months and years ahead” -- to ensure that “we are the energy leader that we need to be.” ]]> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/715 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/715 John M. Barry brings unsettling news from the frontlines of H1N1 research: this novel influenza virus is very hard to pin down. In spite of international scientific scrutiny, H1N1 continues to baffle and elude, worrying health officials defending against the pandemic, and challenging some ideas about influenza in general. Says Barry, “A lot of things we thought we knew, the virus demonstrates we knew wrong.”

Barry examines the current pandemic in both historic and scientific context. Most influenza viruses share certain features: They can jump to other species by way of mutation, or by mixing genetic components with another virus that happens to be infecting the same cell at the same time. Influenza pandemics go “as far back in history as we can look,” with 10 occurring in just the last 300 years. Four of the most recent pandemics appear to have rolled out in waves of varying lethality, infecting at peak times some 30% of the human population.

Before last year, the latest pandemic threat seemed to be H5N1, an avian flu jumping to humans. But, says Barry, “while we were all looking at H5N1, this H1N1 virus snuck up on us…and we have no idea yet how serious it will be.” The problem for researchers is that H1N1 simply won’t behave in predictable ways. When ordinary influenza viruses are transmissible between humans, novel molecular markers are present. The current H1N1 doesn’t bear these markers, yet is transmissible. There are conflicting reports on whether this flu is more infectious than the seasonal flu. There’s evidence that some people over 60 are resistant, perhaps because they carry antibodies to previous influenzas. And although H1N1 doesn’t exhibit conventional molecular tags for virulence, it is virulent. Unlike seasonal flu, when H1N1 kills, it targets younger people, and it does so through viral pneumonia, as opposed to complicating bacterial infections. “Depending on how you ask the question, it’s either extraordinarily mild, more mild than seasonal flu, or more than 100 times as virulent as seasonal influenza.”

While H1N1 seems stable for the moment, and to some, unthreatening, its path can’t yet be plotted. Some of the most infamous flu epidemics take two years to travel around the world, moving from sporadic activity to “blanketing the entire globe and causing enormous morbidity numbers.” If this flu takes off, history tells us, short of a “retreat on a Vermont mountain with shotguns,” there will be nowhere to hide, says Barry. “This virus is going to find me.” ]]> Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/714 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/714 At times humorous and other times defiant, José Ramos-Horta describes nurturing the 21st century’s first sovereign state through its formative years. The journey of East Timor from brutal Indonesian rule to fragile self-governance has involved Ramos-Horta in conflict and debate from the halls of the U.N. to the smallest villages of this tiny Southeast Asian island.

He describes the scene in 2002, after two years of UN-supervised transition, when Indonesia handed off a nation it had governed by force for decades: “A human calamity -- close to 200 thousand people lost their lives.” Another 200 thousand were forcibly displaced into West Timor. As it departed “in anger and frustration,” Indonesia’s military orchestrated the destruction of the nation’s cities, roads, schools and clinics. “The economy was at a standstill,” says Ramos-Horta. “We received barely a sketch of a state, a skeleton.”

The challenge of rebuilding East Timor is all the more daunting given “the psychological-emotional trauma of 24 years of violence.” There are bitter disputes involving how to conduct a national process of reconciliation. Western ambassadors recently called on Ramos-Horta, “representatives of two countries most notorious…for providing weapons and the red carpet treatment to the dictatorship of Indonesia.” They advocated establishing an international tribunal to pursue crimes against humanity during Indonesian rule. Says Ramos-Horta, “Had I been in a bad mood, I would have said, ‘Excuse me, the two of you are lecturing me on human rights and justice?’”

Despite warnings from the U.N. that “lack of justice encourages impunity,” he believes East Timor must travel its own path toward reconciliation. If East Timor set up such a tribunal, “Who would it start with -- Indonesia or the U.S., which provided weapons to Suharto, or Australia, or all of them at once?” He states, “If you pursue justice at any cost without being sensitive to the challenges and complexities on the ground, you undermine the incipient nation, democracy and justice.”

Today, when Ramos-Horta travels in the countryside, people don’t want to discuss security and unity. Recounts Ramos-Horta, “They joke with me: ‘Mr. President, we really like your road to peace, but we prefer a road to our village.’” He’s now focused on providing his people with such essentials as clean water and electricity, and shoring up the nation’s fragile social and economic institutions. “Let’s put all the past behind us. Look after the victims, the wounded, in their minds, bodies and souls, build a country that is deserving of so much sacrifice. Chasing the ghosts of the past leads us nowhere,” says Ramos-Horta. ]]> Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/713 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/713 To the dismay of these seasoned Cuba specialists, the Obama administration is not pursuing a rapid thaw in relations with the Castro regime. While there appears no speedy end to 50 years of icy antipathy toward Cuba, the speakers detect a few hopeful signs of warming in recent times.

Wayne Smith has seen opportunities for a real bilateral relationship come and go. He first went to Cuba in 1958, just before the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations. He was among the first to go back in 1977 when Jimmy Carter attempted to reopen channels for discussion. Smith left the foreign service in 1982 after Reagan was elected, and had great hopes that Clinton would soften the U.S. stance following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Cuban exiles in the U.S. succeeded in retaining a hard-line policy against Cuba. Smith says, “Here we are again: another opportunity.” It’s in the best interest of the U.S., says Smith, to begin “a mature relationship” with Cuba. He thinks the window is open a crack now. He knows many Cuban-Americans whose families lost property, or had relatives imprisoned, and “50 years later have come around to say, it’s time to begin talking.”

We may be entering “an interesting period of change” following a half century of “abnormal, unnatural relations,” says Julia Sweig. A few years ago, on the heels of Fidel Castro’s illness, Cuba initiated a “significant reform agenda.” In a record-short (34 minute) inaugural speech, Castro’s appointed successor, brother Raul, “implied awareness of the intense unhappiness on the island,” announcing proposed internal travel freedoms, and discussing agrarian and currency reform. “He sounded often more like Margaret Thatcher than Karl Marx,” says Sweig. But this fledgling effort to expand opportunities for Cubans was derailed in 2008 by three devastating hurricanes, the collapse of world commodity and financial markets, and Fidel Castro’s recovery (he’s “notoriously allergic to the market,” Sweig says).

There is some reason for optimism beyond Cuba. Sweig perceives a major shift in public opinion among Cuban-Americans, especially the young cohort that helped vote in Obama. There’s a prevailing sense that the embargo has failed, and that America should completely lift its travel ban. And the Obama administration has indicated a slight softening toward Cuba, permitting family remittances, and signaling that it might allow American telecom companies to do business in Cuba.

Sweig believes “this glacial, almost like walking through peanut butter pace of change that we have in bilateral relations suits each government just fine.” She concludes with a genuine bright spot: the September ‘09 Havana concert by Colombian musician Juanes, which demonstrated that the U.S. and Cuba can have meaningful contact with each other “without governments getting in the way.” ]]> Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/712 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/712 How does someone move from recreational drug use to addiction? Barry Everitt’s group at the University of Cambridge has been trying to break down the stages and neural circuitry of addiction with great precision.

Everitt’s research attempts to operationalize a progression in animals from the voluntary taking of drugs, to the acquired habit of drug-taking, to the stage of compulsive drug-seeking and consumption, “where individuals have really lost control.” This progression seems rooted in the sequential activation of different learning systems in the brain, which are particularly sensitive to the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Research suggests that drug-taking is initially dependent on the nucleus accumbens (part of the ventral striatum), but its establishment involves the dorsal striatum. Studies show that dopamine in the dorsal striatum is causally involved in establishing drug-seeking behavior in rats. As the animal gets accustomed to taking the cocaine, there’s a “shift in the balance of associative encoding from ventral to dorsal striatum.” Cocaine craving and self-administration seem to change the functioning of the dorsal striatum in monkeys and humans as well.

While this shift from ventral to dorsal striatum depends to some degree on “pharmacology” (cocaine’s impact on dopaminergic systems), Everitt has hypothesized that it may also involve “spiraling circuitry” connecting the ventral striatum, the midbrain -- the brain’s motivational and motor mechanisms -- and the dorsal striatum. Everitt speculates that the compulsive nature of drug seeking may be rooted in part in the prefrontal cortex, home to “top-down executive control mechanisms.” He describes research that attempted to model this type of compulsion. Animals with short-term access to cocaine and most animals with long-term access to cocaine suppressed their drug-seeking responses when punished. But a subgroup of 20% “persisted in seeking cocaine in the face of punishment.” This result has been replicated many times now, and turns out to have a parallel among humans. This, says Everitt, “brings up the issue of vulnerability to drug addiction.”

Additional research suggests that impulsivity is a “behavioral characteristic that predicts the transition from initial drug intake to loss of control … to compulsive seeking and taking” of drugs. Highly impulsive animals denied cocaine become more impulsive and drug seeking over time, leading to relapses. Everitt and others are tracing the neural basis of compulsivity to impairment in the prefrontal cortex, which involves “a loss of control over maladaptive habits” established after long-term drug taking. ]]> Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video http://mitworld.mit.edu/video ]]> Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/711 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/711 After centuries of insufferable oppression by colonial powers, bloody independence struggles, and corrupt home-grown regimes, “Africa today is quickly awakening, and determined to mainstream itself in the phenomenon of the globalization process,” says John Kufuor, who served as Ghana’s president for two terms starting in 2000. Kufuor recounts how Ghana transcended its dark history to attain astonishing political and economic progress, establishing the nation as an exemplar for fellow African states.

In a brisk history lesson, Kufuor accounts for the lag between Africa and other continents in socioeconomic development: geography kept Africa outside ancient trading routes, and when “marauding” Europeans eventually encountered Africa, it was “more or less a one-sided, institutional gang rape...” Denied citizenship and rights, for 600 years “the African ego and personality was assailed and trampled upon.”

Following World War 2, colonial powers relinquished their African holdings, but successor native governments were often little better, says Kufuor, spouting revolutionary rhetoric, and stifling “visionary individualism and creativity.” State control meant “private capital formation went underground.”

African rulers maintained attachments to their “former European overlords,” who imported Africa’s resources “raw on concessionary terms.” Kufuor blames the “stinginess” of foreign entrepreneurs, their unwillingness to “add value” to these products, for African nations’ current paucity of medium and large-scale business. But Ghana’s trick was to transform this disadvantage -- a large pool of small, agriculturally based businesses -- into the centerpiece of an economic revival. Kufuor cites in particular cocoa farmers, responsible for one of Ghana’s principal exports, who own on average no more than three acres. When he arrived in office, Kufuor determined to support the “self-reliant, risk-taking initiative” of such farmers and other small-scale businesses, recognizing that they were key to “unleashing the potential wealth of the nation.”

His government pursued debt forgiveness by the IMF; separating the central bank from the president’s office; and distributing more banking licenses and lowering lending rates. Aid to farmers with trading, modernization, irrigation, and other infrastructure led to unprecedented economic growth: the GDP quadrupled over an eight year period beginning in 2000, with growth at 7.3% last year. Government “had promised to usher the country into a golden age,” says Kufuor, and came through not just with economic policies, but with investment in education and a national health insurance plan for all citizens. Two years ago, oil was discovered offshore, and Kufuor, “proud of having laid a solid foundation” for Ghana, prays that this find will prove “a blessing and not a curse, for the good of all our sons and daughters.” ]]> Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/708 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/708 Researchers have known for some time that the neurotransmitter dopamine is centrally involved in learning and working memory, Roshan Cools tells us, and that dopamine-responsive circuits connect these parts of the human brain to other structures like the striatum, which also helps orchestrate motor control. Cools has been investigating in detail how dopamine acts within these cortico-striatal circuits to influence different types of cognitive processing.

Specifically, Cools examined the effects of dopaminergic drugs (compounds that modulate the quantity of dopamine available to neurons, or the neurons’ responsiveness to dopamine) on human subjects as they performed a variety of performance tasks. She notes that there’s a “huge variability within and across individuals” to such drugs. The same chemical within the same subject may improve performance in one task, and impair it in another. The drug effect depends on an individual’s baseline levels of dopamine: If someone starts with suboptimal levels, a dopamine-enhancing drug can restore someone to baseline, whereas someone starting with optimal levels of dopamine might be overdosed by the same drug.

One of Cools’ studies looked at the impact of dopaminergic drugs in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, where “the primary pathology is dopamine depletion in the striatum.” This depletion is not uniform, though, in the early and late stages of the disease, and impacts different sites in the striatum. Early stage PD patients suffer more from motor deficiencies than from higher level cortical deficiencies. Through performance tests and fMRI scans,Cools confirmed her hypothesis that in mild PD, dopamine-enhancing medication impaired performance on probabilistic reversal learning (a higher level cognitive task), “presumably by overdosing relatively intact levels of dopamine” in one part of the striatum. Yet these same drugs improved performance on other tasks associated with a part of the striatum concerned with motor systems.

Cools has recently been testing healthy U.C. Berkeley undergrads with dopaminergic drugs, fMRI and PET scans, to see how levels of dopamine impact their performance on different learning tasks. Says Cools, “Dopaminergic medication improves reward- but impairs punishment-based learning in low-dopamine subjects and PD patients. Conversely, it improves punishment- but impairs reward-based reversal learning in high-dopamine subjects. This shift in the balance between reward- and punishment-based reversal likely reflects modulation by dopamine of striatal processing.” ]]> Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/709 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/709 In the process of learning, we “sometimes make more deliberative choices, and sometimes make more visceral ones,” says Paul Phillips. These are “semantic terms we intuitively know,” and scientists have become well-versed in creating tasks for animals and humans that demonstrate how these different kinds of learning (analytical- reflective vs. impulsive -reflexive) play out. Phillips has been trying to track dopamine release (a neurotransmitter linked to learning) in such divergent learning processes.

The model-based learning system pairs a stimulus with a reward, and after training, a subject creates a “model representation of the world” that allows it to predict the appearance of the reward after the stimulus. In contrast, the model-free system of learning “uses a one dimensional value that gets updated” as the subject accumulates experience and begins to weigh the difference between expectation and the reward that’s actually delivered.

One of Phillips’ studies involved implanting electrodes for measuring dopamine release in the striatum of rats participating in different types of learning tasks. Phillips work shows time-dependent changes in the release of dopamine during classic conditioning tasks. At first the dopamine spikes only after the reward, but over time, the animal learns it will receive the reward after the stimulus (a light cue), and soon, the cue alone elicits the dopamine response. Phillips has also found that two distinct parts of the striatum register increased dopamine at different points in the training. “This is quite interesting in terms of thinking about what these brain regions have been implicated in, and specifically the idea of habits in the dorsal striatum.”

The results of some research suggest that during these learning processes, all the dopamine neurons should be firing. But Phillips says this doesn’t explain why “we’re getting signals in (one) part of the brain but not in the other.” Phillips speculates that dopamine’s “arch nemesis acetylcholine” might be inhibiting dopamine release in certain parts of the striatum during specific phases of reinforcement learning.

Phillips has also been working with selectively bred lines of rats, which seem to exhibit behaviors, and dopamine release patterns, suggestive of two distinct learning strategies. He concludes that “associations between stimuli and rewards can be learned through multiple strategies with different computational demands,” and he doesn’t believe that animals “are locked into one strategy or another.” ]]> Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/707 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/707 As a mathematical engineer, Kenji Doya approaches the goal of describing the most intricate brain mechanisms from a computational perspective. He constructs models of reinforcement learning involving the networked structures of the basal ganglia. His efforts are captured and expressed quantitatively as probabilities, regressions, and algorithms.

In this presentation, Doya covers basic concepts of reinforcement learning, then surveys the last decade of inquiry into the components of the basal ganglia circuit governing voluntary motion. Among the topics: action values, action candidates, and reward prediction involving the neurotransmitter dopamine; model-free versus model-based learning strategies; and the essential role of serotonin as modulator in the complex information loop.

Doya’s recent research is carried out via robots he calls “cyber rodents.” His dream as an undergraduate was to “build a robot that learns the variety of behaviors on its own.” That is, the computer, not the human engineer, teaches the robot to move. He accomplished this in designing a machine-creature exhibiting emotion-like attributes characterized as “depression,” “impulsivity,” “greed,” and “patience.”

Doya believes the “metaparameters” of reinforcement learning must be “tuned appropriately…Otherwise the performance of your learning is very, very poor.” The iterative process involves three terms -- the reward itself, the expected reward for a new state based on choice of action, and memory of the reward gained in the previous state. In the comparison, any differential greater than zero can be exploited for learning. The tradeoff: “No pain, no gain.”

As research advanced to increasing levels of structural specificity, Doya posited that “there seems to be spatial segregation in the function” of basal ganglia components. Specialization in aspects of reinforcement learning is now seen, for instance, in ventral versus dorsal areas of the striatum.

Differentiation is also found in the cortico-basal ganglia information network: not a simple closed loop, but parallel electrical pathways conducting distinct neural operations. Further, the neuromodulators each have their respective missions. Dopamine encodes the temporal difference error -- the reward learning signal. Acetylcholine affects learning rate through memory updates of actions and rewards. Noradrenaline controls width or randomness of exploration. Serotonin is implicated in “temporal discounting,” evaluating if a given action is worth the expected reward. Doya reminds us that clinically “it is well known that the serotonin function is impaired in the depression patient.”

The system of basal ganglia components and neuromodulators requires dynamic balancing. A delicate interplay determines outcomes for learning, actions, and affective states. Doya’s synthetic models are proxies for human behavior, and his computational framework describing the moving parts ultimately has therapeutic implications for psychiatric and neurological disorders. ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/706 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/706 In a lively discussion with Simon Johnson,
Lawrence Fish deconstructs the near collapse of the banking system and points out the multiple factors that have contributed to the financial crisis.

Topics in the discussion include the banks that did not fail, how Canadian and other countries' banking systems also did not fail, the political landscape of banking regulation, ethics, bonuses in the banking industry and the ethics oath signed by 50% of the students at the Harvard Business School. ]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/704 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/704 Like tuning in a station on the FM band of a radio, neuroscientists can detect the particular frequencies of our brains in action. And just as on the radio, a little noise and static is to be expected. In Parkinson’s Disease (PD), as Peter Brown and colleagues are finding, too much of a certain type of frequency is a bad thing. Neurons in the basal ganglia produce a kind of overly synchronized beta frequency (in the 20 Hz range) that seems deeply implicated in some of the telltale symptoms of Parkinson’s.

Brown’s talk outlines efforts to record this “oscillatory synchrony” in PD, to figure out the physiological mechanisms behind it, and to connect beta synchrony directly to such key symptoms in PD patients as rigidity and bradykinesia (slowness in executing movements). Scientists can detect clusters of neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (a key component of the basal ganglia) “beating” at 20 Hz. Brown says the “exaggerated synchrony” of these neurons seems to have something to do with a chronic loss of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Ordinary subjects have a “fair amount of healthy beta activity,” notes Brown, and when these subjects engage in voluntary movements, such as extending a forefinger, the beta activity is suppressed. But in PD patients, says Brown, uncontrolled beta activity seems to promote postural contraction “at the expense of voluntary movement.”

Brown and others have recorded activity in the brains of PD patients undergoing two key treatments, Deep Brain Stimulation (where electrodes implanted in the brain try to break the pattern of normal neuronal firing), and dopaminergic therapy. Both methods relieve the symptoms of slow movement and rigidity. Excessive beta oscillations are suppressed during these two treatments. This is “correlative evidence,” says Brown, that beta activity is behind the symptoms. Scientists are trying to connect the dots, and find a causal link: After stimulating the neurons of the subthalamic nucleus to beat at 20 Hz, they observe a 20% slowing of movement. Brown is conducting additional studies that provide evidence in PD of a looping brain pathway involving not just the basal ganglia, but parts of the cortex, which has an “innate tendency for activity at 20 Hz,” causing bradykinesia and rigidity, and which can be damped by the input of dopamine. In closing, Brown acknowledges he must bring “the beta story …down to reality,” since it doesn’t seem to connect to other PD symptoms such as tremor, and “I’ve been a beta chauvinist here, and ignored other frequencies.” ]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/705 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/705 People sometimes ask Montek Singh Ahluwalia questions loaded with “aspirational objectives,” such as when India will “get rid of poverty.” Few are as well equipped to respond as Ahluwalia, one of the architects of India’s breathtaking economic transformation.

The current income of an average Indian citizen is about 1/15th that of a U.S. citizen. Ahluwalia envisions increasing India’s per capita income ten fold. He sees this as a matter of “simple arithmetic.” To achieve this advance, India must sustain GDP growth of 9% a year (which corresponds to a 7%/year growth in personal income) -- for 32 years. By 2040, India’s 1.5 billion people could be living more like Americans. “Regrettably, I won’t be around to see it,” says Ahluwalia.

By 2020, though, assuming such sustained economic growth, he would be around to witness “more modest results.” Indians would double their annual income to $6,600, and the nation would be able to “provide a basic level of services to the vast majority of its population,” essentially leaving behind its problems of poverty. This kind of growth, “an extremely worthwhile objective” for India, would also leave its mark on the rest of the world. It would inspire other emerging economies, for one thing. It would also shift the balance of power in global trade, with the combined economies of India and China taking on the U.S.

So can India really achieve this kind of relentless economic progress? Ahluwalia’s not sure, but invokes the successes of Japan, Korea and China, and sees reasons for optimism. Over the past eight years, India’s averaged a 7.2% GDP growth rate, and looks likely to land on its feet after the current worldwide recession. On the other hand, the nation’s vibrant democracy (420 million voted in the most recent elections) can make agreement on economic policy and its implementation difficult. Ahluwalia is “not complaining,” but acknowledges that this kind of participative society “means we’re taking longer to get done what needs to be done.”

He sees institutional strengths that will enable India to push its development agenda forward: a sense of confidence pervades Indian society; past reforms have “unleashed tremendous energy in the private sector;” the economy has opened up to greater domestic and foreign markets; and in spite of changes in government, the general economic policies continue to evolve. Ahluwalia acknowledges that defeating poverty may not address everyone’s goals for success. The true objective for India, he believes, is “inclusive growth,” an equitable and constructive distribution of economic gains via market forces, government and public means. ]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/703 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/703 New tools are enabling neuroscientists to break therapeutic ground against daunting disorders like Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Andres Lozano is one “of a small group of heroes,” in Ann Graybiel’s estimate, whose work is yielding astonishing advances on a variety of fronts.

Treatments for PD, a progressive, degenerative brain disorder, have until recently dealt primarily with the loss of dopamine-releasing neurons, leading to the classic movement disorders associated with PD: tremor, rigidity, akinesia. But Lozano says that by the time these physical problems are diagnosed, “the reality is that the disease started 10-15 years earlier,” and has involved other brain areas. Lozano determined to focus on three such non-motor symptoms of the disease -- gait and posture, depression (in PD and other patients), and cognitive disorders -- and if possible, “reach these circuits, intervene and help patients.”

PD patients have serious problems controlling balance and posture, and animal studies helped pinpoint an area in the brainstem responsible for these functions. Lozano got permission to plant electrodes in humans in this area, and mapped out the sensitivities of neurons to voluntary movements such as flexing an ankle or walking. In six PD patients, Lozano sent a mild electric current into these neurons. He shows videos demonstrating the remarkable improvement in control (a patient pushed no longer falls) with deep brain stimulation (DBS). A serendipitous offshoot of this therapy is that it improves REM sleep, in which PD patients are deficient.

Lozano has been working as well on mapping and targeting areas of the brain involved in depression, which he has found to be hyperactive. He labeled neurons that responded exclusively to sad and disturbing images, and using DBS, he was able to “turn down the hyperactivity,” successfully reversing severe depression in 60% of his 36 subjects.

His final accomplishment emerged by accident: While attempting to treat a patient’s morbid obesity through DBS, Lozano was startled to find when stimulating the man’s thalamus the patient experienced a vivid sense of déjà vu. (He recalled being in a field 30 years earlier with a girlfriend.) The stronger the current, the more details emerged. When the stimulus ended, the memory ceased. Lozano hopes, via DBS, to help patients with memory disorders. Another intriguing discovery: stimulation in the hippocampus, deeply involved in memory, seems to lead to a burst of new neuron development. These DBS studies suggest, says Lozano, that brain circuits for mood, motor control and cognition can be modulated, and we now “need to determine whether they are safe and beneficial to patients.” ]]> Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/702 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/702 Pigeons really like millet seed, monkeys crave juice, and humans get a kick out of winning money. While all animals don’t enjoy the same rewards, Paul Glimcher has discovered some common features in the way animal brains learn to recognize and pursue something of value.

Glimcher is one of the founding fathers of the young field of neuroeconomics, in which economic theories help inform investigations of brain function. It’s not surprising then, that his approaches include game theory as well as measuring the firing of single neurons. Glimcher’s talk details his research from the past 15 years, what he describes as an attempt to “add something” to the classic studies on the basal ganglia circuit conducted by fellow symposium speaker Okihide Hikosaka. From Hikosaka’s data and other research, Glimcher came to believe that neurons of the substantia nigra (part of the basal ganglia) were coding for something of worth to an animal, but that these neurons were “responding not to reward per se, but to deviations to expectation.” For instance, if a pigeon expected a delivery of millet seed following a conditioned cue, no neurons fired, but if the reward was delayed, then suddenly delivered, the pigeon would find its initial prediction in error, and its neurons burst into action.

Various models emerged to capture the ways in which these neurons, energized primarily by the neurotransmitter dopamine, enabled animals to adjust expectations about and predict rewards. But Glimcher found fault with others scientists’ “conditional parameters.” He says, “As an economist, this is frustrating.” So he developed three mathematical axioms for testing the so-called Reward Prediction Error (RPE) models. His work “suggested a way of unifying the data,” with the notion that the basal ganglia learns “the values of actions in a quantitative way … from the dopamine neurons and the incoming stimulus.”

Glimcher hypothesized that dopamine neurons take the value of a reward just received, “and subtract it from a weighted exponential average of previous rewards, and if there’s no mismatch, there should be no firing of…dopamine neurons.” Human, monkey and pigeon studies -- based on gambling, juice, and seed rewards, respectively -- solidified his notion that dopamine neurons are part of an RPE encoding system where they convey the differences between rewards expected and rewards received. This has led Glimcher to believe that “one of the principle functions of the basal ganglia is to learn the values of our actions, represent them, and pump out the data to produce choice.” ]]> Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/701 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/701 As Ann Graybiel puts it, “basal ganglia were dark basement structures” until Okihide Hikosaka began his classic 1980s research demonstrating how these neuronal clusters influenced eye movements. Hikosaka has deepened and broadened his work in this once neglected area of the brain, and brings a McGovern audience up to date on his latest discoveries.

Hikosaka briefly sketches what is known about the basic pathways leading in, around and out of the basal ganglia, circuits that have been associated with stress, pain, mood, memory and arousal. This specialized cluster of neurons seems especially attuned to the neurotransmitter dopamine, and Hikosaka has been investigating “a number of unsolved questions,” including how dopamine neurons form circuits for movement control, whether such neurons encode “motivational values,” and what other parts of the brain guide them.

Hikosaka describes research demonstrating that certain dopamine neurons become excited if a visual cue indicates a future reward, and become inhibited with a visual cue indicating no reward. Dopamine also increases after an action delivers a reward and decreases when an action produces no reward. Research began to explore whether dopamine neurons “encode motivational values, including reward and punishment.” After others’ studies yielded contradictory or uncertain conclusions, Hikosaka designed a set of studies on monkeys involving classical Pavlovian conditioning, with juice rewards and air puffs as aversive stimuli.

Among Hikosaka’s findings: some dopamine neurons were excited primarily by positive, reward-predicting stimuli, others inhibited by air puff-predicting stimuli. But he also found another group of dopamine neurons excited both by positive and negative reward-predicting stimuli (as well as the stimuli themselves). Hikosaka posited two types of neurons that react in very different ways to motivational signals, which he described as value-coding and salience-coding. He also determined that the lateral habenula, a part of the brain sitting at one end of the thalamus, seems to regulate dopamine pathways involved in some motivational responses. By sending a weak electric pulse through the lateral habenula, Hikosaka saw a very strong inhibition of the dopamine neurons that “encode mostly motivational values.” ]]> Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/700 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/700 Real-world practitioners of systems engineering/engineering systems describe how the young discipline has shaped their very large enterprises.

For the past 10 years, David Lehman has been incorporating key systems engineering ideas within MITRE Corporation. Successes include getting project leaders to think about engineering solutions in the context of political and economic organization, and learning how to communicate these solutions better. MITRE has talked to defense acquisition managers in the field to extract data and create models that get disseminated to other managers. But Lehman is disappointed that Defense Department acquisition methods are still large-scale, and unresponsive to swiftly changing situations. He’d like to show program managers how “to step outside what they’ve been taught,” and create incentives for doing the right things rather than “sticking with regulations.”

Robert Skinner, Jr. wonders if engineering systems approaches can help with some pressing questions: the way to mix transportation and land use decisions in urban areas, for instance, or government pricing strategies for surface transport. One nettlesome issue involves the right scope of analysis, says Skinner. Should researchers be looking at the components of the transportation system, or the whole enterprise? “As we move downward, uncertainty increases and the role of social systems and social science enters into it; politics upper and lower case becomes more significant.” And he adds, “We’re sorely lacking in analogs in the policy world to transmit complex engineering concepts. If analysis gets too far out ahead of the public’s and decision-makers’ ability to absorb it, it all comes to naught.”

“Why are so many complex systems behind schedule and over budget?” asks Heinz Stoewer. A single line of code missing can cause system collapse, says Stoewer. And big problems can flow from human shortcomings in calculations, accounting or risk management. Stoewer believes another reason for failure is that program managers and systems engineers “are too process focused,” and not well enough aligned. They may lack sufficient depth in the key discipline of their projects, leading to faulty product design or production. To improve the chances of success, Stoewer emphasizes the importance of early phases: “I can tell you two dozen programs in trouble because they’re…making enormous efforts trying to get things right when they’re almost done.”

By 2020, Joel Moses hopes that engineering systems will be recognized “as having made significant contributions” to health care, energy, environment, financial services and the military. To achieve such an impact, the field should focus on “maybe the key issue” of system architecture. Each engineering field thinks of architecture in different ways and groups must communicate better with each other. Moses believes educators should teach “what makes for a good system architect,” and that “systems thinking is important, but not enough.” A good system architect sees things holistically. Moses notes as well, “the difference between designing a one-off versus a family of systems.”

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/699 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/699 The field of systems engineering has only recently emerged, and as this symposium demonstrates, defies precise definition. But MIT has taken this evolving area to heart, nurturing a new division and encouraging a raft of ventures that in their execution, may help shape the field for the next century.

An MIT freshman in 1900 had some very specific requirements to fulfill for graduation, and to prepare for a responsible role in society, says Subra Suresh. Courses included mechanical drawing, military science and rhetoric. These choices became richer over time, with the addition of hundreds of engineering faculty, dealing increasingly with the sciences. Suresh traces how over many decades an engineering concentration on metallurgy shifted from studying mining (iron), to aviation (aluminum), plastics, electronic materials and then biological materials. But at each step, he notes, MIT “always lagged behind about 10 years” in what it taught students.”

The Engineering Systems Division (ESD) is an attempt to “train people the right way.” The curriculum brings the basic rules of nature into engineering practice, and applies discoveries to products and processes that impact people. Students must take into account the “long term societal impact.” ESD is needed to link complex issues along technological and social dimensions. The modern engineer must create new ideas and technologies, and reinvent tools and technologies from earlier times -- as Suresh puts it, “Fix problems associated with the greatest achievements of the 20th century.”

Yossi Sheffi fine tunes the picture, enumerating the key domains under the ESD umbrella, as well as the approaches faculty have adopted, in research, teaching and real-world projects. The primary distinction between other engineers and ESD engineers, Sheffi notes, is that “we try to look at the big picture.” So ESD focuses on critical infrastructure (water, transportation), such extended enterprise as supply chain management and global factories; energy sustainability and health care delivery. To get a handle on such unwieldy subjects, professors examine the human-technological interface, and delve into uncertainty, dynamics, design and implementation, networks and flows, and policy and standards.

MIT’s “engineers without labs” are seeking to “develop insights, principles and tools across all systems,” forging partnerships in industry, around the world. ESD students and faculty must get out in the field, says Sheffi, not just to fulfill course requirements but in order to tackle significant global problems, and to find solutions that are sustainable in terms of social equity, economic development and environmental impact. ESD values and accepts “intellectual risk,” meaning issues that may appear unquantifiable or vague, even without solution, and understands that problem solving means respecting and bringing together all disciplines, including the social sciences and management. ]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/698 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/698 One of the nation’s revered technology leaders dispenses anecdotes and wisdom on the slippery subject of engineering systems (or systems engineering). Norm Augustine just can’t get a handle on the discipline: “No one agrees on what it is, or what it does.” After years in industries like Lockheed Martin, Augustine has come up with “Norm’s Rules,” and can at least define ‘system’ as “having two or more elements that interact,” and ‘engineering’ as “creating the means for performing useful functions.” But these definitions don’t get you too far in the real world.

Augustine shows a fuel control system, which some engineers might view as part of a propulsion system. In turn, aeronautical engineers might think of the entire airplane as a system, and transport engineers view aircraft as merely components in systems incorporating airports, highways, shipping lanes. Augustine continues up the ladder until “our system that started as a fuel controller…seems to have the whole universe as a system.” Like Russian Matryoshka dolls, systems can always be embedded within larger systems. Even if you try to simplify a system in terms of just a few objects with a binary, on-off interaction, things can get complex very quickly. Five elements in a system can exist in more than a million possible states. Says Augustine, “A typical earth satellite has nearly one million parts; a 747 over 5 million. How does that make you feel about flying?”

Distinguishing the significant interactions and the important external influences on a system are central to designing and problem solving. And these days, engineers must include politics, public policy and economics as part of their systems. “The trick is to bound the scope of the system so it’s not too large to be analyzed and not too small to be representative.” Doing this right is “why systems engineers should be paid so much.”

Augustine concludes with his “Dirty Dozen” systems engineering traps, which have led to embarrassing bust-ups, monumental failures, and real tragedies. Notable among these: “the ubiquitous interface,” (or absence thereof). He describes how two flight control groups used different metric units and accidentally sent a Mars-bound spacecraft whizzing off into deep space. There’s the “single-point failure,” exemplified by the collapse of a football field-sized satellite dish due to a poorly designed bracket. There’s software, “which like entropy, always increases:” a Mariner spacecraft headed in the wrong direction due to a missing hyphen in 100 thousand lines of code. The problem with most systems ultimately is that they “contain human elements … and humans sometimes do irrational things.” ]]> Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/697 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/697 These panelists use the lens of systems engineering to focus sharply on some signature global challenges in finance, healthcare, energy and IT.

The system failure that undid the small but influential financial services industry was a few decades in the making, says John Reed. In the ‘80s, a sea change swept over firms trading hundreds of billions of dollars each day. The new mantra was “shareholder value.” Firms ditched time-honored rules of capitalizing trades and guaranteeing risk in order to build investor profits. The crystallization of this philosophy was the mortgage-backed security. Trillions of dollars went into “off-balance-sheet investment vehicles.” When the nation’s mortgage portfolio deteriorated, not just one node in the system collapsed, but all of them. To fix the financial sector, says Reed, “A systems view will be essential, including behavioral considerations, not just economics.”

There’s no point in saying U.S.healthcare is broken unless you can offer a vision. For Denis Cortese, this means designing a “learning organization.” Cortese maps out this organization’s goals: simple value, with “better outcomes, better safety, and better service at a lower cost over time.” His proposed system would focus on the patient’s needs in order to “raise the health of the entire population.”

Cortese doesn’t see a role for the government in his ideal organization. But there must be better metrics for determining value, coordination among large and small healthcare organizations, and “common principles in the payer domain.” Ultimately, we’ll need to define quality healthcare and set outcomes: “It won’t be perfect, but it will be better than where we are today.”

Nine billion people will inhabit the planet by 2100, and many of them will either be acquiring energy for the first time, or wanting more. This has “unpleasant if not catastrophic” implications for greenhouse gas emissions, says Steven Koonin. Powering up while securing affordable energy and minimizing emissions involves better modeling of the physical and biological climate system; overcoming the inertia of our current transportation and building industries; and improving the “patchwork” of our current energy grid. Koonin sees immediate opportunities to cut energy use in half in cities, but we “must bring policy up to speed” to make this happen.

Tackling global problems won’t be possible without an improvement in complex organizational systems, says Irving Wladawsky-Berger, which in contrast to physically engineered systems, haven’t progressed in the past century or so. Change is creeping in, though, as organizations manage increasing amounts of data with more integrated instrumentation and swelling computer capacity. Wladawsky-Berger sees new tools emerging such as cloud computing and networked data centers, leading to the standardization and customization of services for producers and consumers. He believes that the “merging of the digital infrastructure with the physical infrastructure” will lead to new ways of life, including smarter cities with smart traffic systems that reduce congestion and pollution. ]]> Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/696 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/696 It’s a good thing for a world increasingly beset by mammoth challenges that universities are responding with new engineering systems programs. These initiatives, as Daniel Roos attests, are swiftly proliferating in the U.S. and abroad to equip students to address such complex issues as health care, sustainable energy, and infrastructure. Roos celebrates the fifth year of the Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN), one of this symposium’s sponsors, and recaps his survey of group members on the state of engineering systems education.

While some traditionalists resist the interdisciplinary dimensions and broad compass featured so prominently in engineering systems programs, Roos believes that rapid global change necessitates corresponding change in how engineers are trained to think and practice. A case in point: a collapsing 100-year-old automobile and transportation system whose revival must incorporate complex, networked systems: intelligent infrastructure that can improve safety and alleviate congestion; and new, green, digitally wired vehicles integrated in a “smart energy net.”

ESD researchers study the complex social/technological questions that “will increasingly determine the future,” says Susan Hockfield. At MIT, Hockfield's job “is to lower boundaries that still exist between departments, and schools. By bringing together faculty, ESD creates enormous energy."

Charles Vest tells his audience, “Your time has come,” but warns that the U.S. lags dangerously far behind other nations in graduating engineers. Redesigning college-level engineering programs won’t be enough to meet the “grand challenges” posed by our times, if more children can’t be inspired to study engineering. The field lacks luster, and simply doesn’t connect with young people, says Vest. “We have failed miserably in projecting what engineering is, what it can accomplish and what’s exciting.”

The nation faces a great opportunity “to start rebuilding the economy based on real engineering innovations, to produce real goods and services, providing real value to people and society.” Vest wants to draw young people to work “at the frontiers of technology.” He notes a lot of interest in “tiny systems” such as biology, information and nano-technology. But “we need to worry” about the big macro systems of energy, environment, healthcare, manufacturing –“where the rubber hits the road between engineering and society.”

Vest wants to capture the passion of the next generation through some “soul stirring.” Through a campaign involving government, industry, and media, Vest hopes to convince young people that engineers are vital to meeting the “Engineering Grand Challenges” of global warming and sustainable energy, improving medicine and healthcare delivery, reducing vulnerability to human and natural threats, and expanding and enhancing human capability and joy (a somewhat unusual category for engineers, Vest admits).

Vest concludes with some personal comments about engineering systems, including anecdotes about Toyota’s innovations in auto assembly; NASA’s hard-won lessons in integrated design and manufacture of space-bound vehicles; and improvements in hospital care following simple changes integrated system wide. He sees the implosion of our financial system as an opportunity to study an incredibly complex human-technological system and set in place “at least an early warning system.” Vest also finds cheer in the public’s budding grasp of complex systems, as witnessed by increasing discomfort with fuel-based ethanol. ]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/695 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/695 Visiting the San Diego Zoo’s orangutans and chimpanzees inspires Patrick Henry Winston to ponder what makes humans different from our primate cousins. His field of artificial intelligence extends that question to thinking about how humans differ from computers. Winston’s goal is to “develop a computational theory of intelligence.”

Bridging the gap from people to machines requires a complex understanding of how we think. Winston asserts we think with our eyes, our hands, our mouth. Humans rely upon visual, motor, and linguistic faculties to learn and solve problems. Perceptual powers enable naming, describing, categorizing and recalling. In the aggregate, these processes are “commonsense,” a hallmark of cognition that Winston aims to vest in computer programs -- to endow transistors with the nuanced capabilities of neurons.

Crucially, we also think with our stories. Throughout childhood and formal education, we are taught via fairy tales, myths, history, literature, religion, and popular entertainment. Professional disciplines like law, science, medicine, engineering, and business are conveyed through stories too.

Recognizing patterns, relationships, and mistakes, as well as abstract concepts like revenge or success, helps us explain, predict, answer questions. The delicate processes of extracting knowledge and capturing meaning may appear seamless or instinctive in the evolved mind, but must be parsed syntactically to “teach” a computer to achieve the same ends.

What might be practical applications “for systems that understood stories”? Winston suggests that decision-making in business and military strategy would benefit. And no less, comprehending cultures. If a computer program could derive clues from context, perhaps it could determine why “what plays in Peoria” doesn’t translate to Baghdad.

Early efforts to build a computational theory of intelligence focused on “symbolic integration…We figured out how to make programs do calculus by 1960…but computers remained as dumb as stones,” Winston says. When we progressed to building robots -- “things that move” -- language was still lacking. “We forgot that the distinguishing characteristic of human intelligence is that linguistic veneer that stands above our perceptual apparatus,” he remarks.

A paradox emerging from Winston’s study of how humans think is that “computers make us stupid.” For instance, when students are freed from taking notes, absence of “forced engagement” with the material hinders learning. He cautions that teachers confuse the “presentation of information with the delivery of information.” Too many words on a slide (or talking too fast) “jams the language processor” and impedes digesting content.

Winston summarizes with an appealing prescription for becoming smarter. “Take notes…draw pictures…talk and imagine…tell stories!” The very act of explaining to another elucidates a lesson for oneself. ]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/694 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/694 It’s rare to find research that simultaneously advances basic science and brings good into people’s lives, but Pawan Sinha’s Project Prakash does precisely that. An investigator of human visual processing, Sinha is interested in how these brain mechanisms develop. For his work, Sinha realized the ideal subjects would be individuals who developed sight after blindness. Since he could not ethically create such an experimental population, he had to “rely on natural experiments” -- children born blind, but who recovered their vision.

Sinha found these subjects in his native India, which has the world’s highest number of blind children -- more than one million. They are victims of Vitamin A deficiency, congenital cataracts, and absent or atrocious medical care. But salient to Sinha’s research, many of these blind children could be treated. He glimpsed a humanitarian and scientific opportunity, and Project Prakash (Sanskrit for light) was born.

Starting a few years ago, Sinha and his team began screening blind children in a few villages to identify cases of treatable blindness, and remedy their disorders. More recently, he’s gained support from hospitals and schools for the blind, reaching many more children. He began to establish a test population. Research on this unique group has yielded many original insights into the development of vision, and shaken some major scientific dogmas. Sinha found that after years without visual stimuli, the brains of these children could process new information flooding in -- challenging the notion of early critical periods in brain development. He discovered that patients who once learned about objects simply via touch could, once they gained sight, identify the same objects simply by looking at them.

Sinha has also delved into the mechanisms of visual integration -- how our brains make sense of visual cues containing diverse colors, illumination, and patterns. He’s learned that newly sighted patients have difficulty parsing overlapping images (such as triangles, squares, circles), but moving these images around magically sparks recognition. Research results are consistent across all ages, and show that early stages of sight acquisition involve seeing the world in a fragmented way, compromising recognition, and that motion cues are critical for putting pictures together meaningfully, serving “a critical bootstrapping function for visual learning.”

The kinds of integrative difficulties experienced by Project Prakesh children bring to mind similar difficulties in autistic children, for whom motion processing also seems to be deficient, and Sinha is now seeking a possible “causal chain in autism” that leads to the disorder’s devastating social impairments -- a research path that might someday yield new therapies. ]]> Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/693 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/693 In trying financial times, Susan Hockfield remains optimistic and committed to pursuing MIT’s massive, multi-year initiatives in energy and life sciences. She prefaces her “whirlwind” tour of MIT for an alumni audience by referencing the campus-wide relief at the change in presidential administrations, which promises to make science and engineering more central, and to make “MIT values more mainstream.” If it indeed becomes “cool to be smart,” Hockfield believes MIT can count on taking a prominent national role in research, policy and education.

One key area in which MIT hopes to make a major contribution is sustainable energy. The MIT Energy Initiative, two years old, brings together faculty and students across all disciplines to develop a portfolio of new technologies (although the focus seems increasingly to fall on solar). Campus interest is so intense that the Institute has committed to a minor in energy, and it’s seeking five new professorships in the area. The other major enterprise involves fusing biological sciences with engineering, especially in the study of cancer. At the new Koch Institute, cancer biologists and engineers have already made “fundamental discoveries underlying new targeted cancer drugs,” and they are hard at work decoding the disease, and devising new methods for diagnosis and treatment.

Hockfield also candidly describes the impact of the economic downturn on the Institute, acknowledging that “most revenue streams have been compromised,” except for research. With the endowment down by 20-25%, departments across the board are making significant but strategic cuts for the next two to three years. MIT will not compromise on providing financial aid to needy students, a cost that understandably has risen in the past year, nor on hiring faculty. Hockfield hopes that private philanthropy will help MIT “preserve core strengths and values.” At the end of the recession, she says, “We want to come out with a leaner, stronger Institute.”

Fellow neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe outlines her research investigating the neural basis for a Theory of Mind -- how the human mind seems geared to “glean what others are thinking and feeling.” From her work with children and adults, Saxe has determined that there’s a very specific region of the brain -- the right temporal-parietal junction -- dedicated to thinking about how others think. This area lights up in the fMRI scanner when people read stories involving another person’s beliefs and moral judgments, but not when they digest other kinds of written material. The RTPJ develops this special function slowly (young children don’t have it), and Saxe has discovered that she can interfere with this region’s activities, altering her subjects’ sense of what constitutes morally permissible behavior. She’s exploring whether these distinct neural networks develop differently in children with autism, with the hope of finding therapies that might someday help treat the disorder. ]]> Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/692 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/692 Contrary to popular thinking, China owes its astonishing economic expansion not to far-sighted government policy but to hundreds of millions of entrepreneurial peasants. Yasheng Huang’s research reveals not only how small-scale rural businesses created China’s miracle but how that nation’s recovery from the global recession and righting the massive East-West trade imbalance depend on this same under-acknowledged sector.

Huang begins with questions, including why China produces so much relative to its own consumption. He shows graphs dramatically illustrating the rise of China’s GDP with a concurrent drop in domestic consumption. A nation that doesn’t consume what it produces must export. Huang has pounded away at the question of this drop in consumption. He rejects explanations pointing at a Chinese bent for thrift, and believes instead that households have become impoverished in the midst of the nation’s decades-long boom.

Huang’s research analyzed previously unexamined data to resolve this paradox and produce a novel thesis, detailing the rise and fall of rural entrepreneurship in China. In the 1980s, enabled by government liberalization, tens of millions of peasants began home-grown private businesses, from small-scale manufacturing to service delivery. They supplemented meager agricultural incomes, generating profits that they used to better their standards of living. The Chinese economy boomed. But in the 1990s, a new regime took over, taxing the grass-roots entrepreneurs and pouring money into infrastructure and state-run enterprises. Politicians imposed steep fees on education and healthcare, soaking the newly minted rural capitalists. GDP rose, but household incomes dipped, as hundreds of millions pinched pennies instead of generating profits. The Chinese made lots of things that they couldn’t buy. A global trade imbalance ballooned.

The recession has struck the rural Chinese especially painfully (they make up 70% of the nation’s population). More than 100 million who had migrated to cities for work have lost their jobs with the shutdown of factories, and there has been a “virtual collapse in non-farm business income growth,” says Huang. New Chinese policies have begun to attend to rural issues, such as abolishing rural taxation, reducing fees, and spurring microfinance. This should help increase household income. But in key areas like land reform, there’s only been talk. Huang believes a Chinese stimulus package aimed at reinvigorating the building boom won’t do nearly as much good for the economy as liberalization of social policies and attempts to unleash once again the productive energies of the rural poor. ]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/691 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/691 While Arnold Barnett acknowledges addressing the same questions around flying year after year (“Does he ever change his schtick?”), he advertises some new twists this time ‘round. Barnett remains remarkably consistent, though, in his quite sunny assessment of the current state of aviation safety -- even after a recent string of air accidents.

Wielding statistics and the occasional wisecrack, Barnett arrives at his destination by way of a series of dialectical questions. How safe is it to fly now? Doesn’t that depend on how we measure aviation safety, and which statistics are the most informative? You could look at such metrics as fatal accidents per flight hours, or hull loss per 100 thousand departures, or passengers killed to passengers carried. Barnett proposes instead the “imperfect but meaningful” statistic of death risk per randomly chosen flight, which among other conceptual advantages, deals with the odds of being killed -- a factor with “intuitive appeal.”

Barnett’s numbers: From 2000 to 2008, someone who chose a U.S. jet flight at random would sustain an accidental death risk of 1 in 23 million (there were 3 crashes in 69 million total jet flights). There’s a much greater likelihood an American child will become president (one in 2 million) than die in flight.

Death risk statistics from the 1960s through today have improved steadily, plateauing in the current decade due to the unprecedented tragedy of 9/11. Currently, there’s a one in 10 million risk of death by jet in U.S. flight, around 1 in 14 million for other developed nations (the developing world’s aviation risk poses somewhat greater hazards: one in 1.5 million). Says Barnett,“Despite recent suggestions to the contrary, regional jet flights are not less safe than national airlines.”

While “fatal accidents on first world jets are on the verge of extinction,” Barnett worries about an increase in runway collisions, as the global economy improves. He hopes technological advances will address these concerns. The greater challenge comes from terrorism, which he feels sure will continue to target aviation. Using a cost benefit analysis, Barnett dispenses with proposals to ban laptops on flights, and also dismisses the idea of faster, more effective responses to terrorist attacks, which often come in clusters. Ultimately, our “optimal strategy might actually be to do nothing, except hope.” Perhaps we should come to view aviation dangers as Californians regard the threat of earthquakes: Take precautions but acknowledge “we have to take certain risks in life if we’re going to have lives worth risking.” ]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/690 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/690 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.” ]]>