[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events - December 1, 2013
George Mokray
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Dec 1 11:22:29 PST 2013
Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater Boston area that catch the editor's eye.
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke at world.std.com
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html
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Event Index - full Event Details available below the Index
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Monday, December 2
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9am An international labor poster exhibit from the collection of STEPHEN LEWIS
12pm "Understanding climate model biases in Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude variability"
12pm Systems Thinking and the Inevitability of the Dreamliner Delays
12pm Double Dividend: Environmental Taxes and Fiscal Reform
1:30pm "The Egyptian Transition: The Betrayed Revolution"
3:15pm The Legacy of Bayard Rustin: Civil Rights Icon
4pm Nanostructured Materials and Systems for Biomedical Applications
4pm "Nitrification in the Ocean"
4pm Worker Mobility in a Global Labor Market: Evidence From the United Arab Emirates
4pm "Accountability and Transparency: National Security, the Media and the Public Good."
4:15pm "Modern Views, Unblocked: Looking into the Distance in Phu My Hung, a Vietnamese New Urban Zone"
5:30pm Network Structure and the Aggregation of Information: Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
6pm Humanizing Megascale
7pm "Evolution culinary theory"
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Tuesday, December 3
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12pm (Re)designing Democracy for the Long Term
12:30pm A Roadmap for Decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
12:30pm Cooperation in a Peer Production Economy: Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia
12:30pm Managing Asymmetric Conflict: Lessons from the Case of Israel and Hezbollah
4pm How vegetation alters water motion, and the feedbacks to environmental system structure and function
6pm Deans' Design Challenge Kickoff
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Wednesday, December 4
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12pm Transportation System Resilience, Extreme Weather, and Climate Change
12pm System and conscience: NSA bulk surveillance and the problem of freedom
2pm xTalks: Online teacher education in Pakistan
3pm How Quantum Mechanics Can Help Solve the World's Energy Problems
4pm Indigenous Jurisdiction, Customary Laws, & Alternative Conflict Resolution
4:10pm “Weather, Salience of Climate Change, and Congressional Voting”
5pm MIT Africa Interest Group Meeting
7pm FOCUS: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
7pm Global Water Security: a plan to ensure global access to clean water
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Thursday, December 5
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8am 17th Annual Photonics Center Symposium
4pm The Burden of Disease Attributable to Ambient Air Pollution
4pm Perceptions of Muslims: Discourses after the Boston Bombings and the Woolwich Murder
4pm Strategic Thinking and Value of Reasoning: Theory and Applications to Five 'Little Treasures' of Game Theory
4pm The Piracy Crusade: How the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties
4pm Massachusetts Clean Energy Center: InnovateMass Info Session
4:15pm The Gettysburg Project: Understanding and Revitalizing Civic Engagement
4:30pm Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid
5pm Long-Form Journalism: Inside "The Atlantic"
5:30pm Buddhist Self-Sacrifice in Tibet: The Survivors Speak
5:30pm EnergyBar: Sustainable America Edition
7pm Meet Your Local Garbage Patch: Surface to Seafloor Marine Debris Cleanup in Boston Harbor and the Gulf of Maine
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Friday, December 6
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12pm "The Power of Promise: Examining the Feasibility of A Rapid Expansion of Nuclear Energy in India."
8pm Rambax MIT Senegalese Drum Ensemble
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Saturday, December 7
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11am Rug Sale to Stop Female Genital Mutilation
1pm IdeaStorm- High School Student Entrepreneurship Event
2pm Fun Tech Forum: TECH SHOW TIME III
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Sunday, December 8
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11am HEET Weatherization Work Party
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Monday, December 9
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12pm "Manipulation of Day-ahead Electricity Prices through Virtual Bidding"
7pm "The Accidental Chemist"
7pm Reanimation, an Ongoing Performance
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Tuesday, December 10
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12:30pm Time Trade Circle Orientation
12:30pm Re-Thinking Intellectual Property Rights Models for the Poor
2pm Bayonne Revisited: Water Partnerships One Year Later
2:30pm Delegating Responsibility to the Market: How Competition Shapes Fairness Perceptions
6:30pm Remote Collaboration at Google: Overcoming the Tyranny of Distance
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com
An Open Conversation about Internet Communications Privacy with Ladar Levison
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/12/an-open-conversation-about-internet.html
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Event Details
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Monday, December 2
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An international labor poster exhibit from the collection of STEPHEN LEWIS
December 2 through December 30 2013
Open Mon. through Thu. 9 am to 9 pm, Fri. 9 am to 6pm.
Sat. 9 am to 5 pm, Sun. 1 pm to 5 pm
Somerville Public Library, 79 Highland Avenue, Somerville
Free Admission, fully accessible. For information call 617/623-5000
Free admission, fully accessible
This project is supported in part by a grant from:
Roofers Union Local 33 and Boston Carmens Union
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"Understanding climate model biases in Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude variability"
Monday, December 02, 2013
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)
Speaker: Isla Simpson (LDEO)
Abstract: The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) represents a latitudinal shifting of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) jet stream and is the dominant mode of variability in the SH mid-latitude circulation. A common bias among global climate models is that they tend to exhibit SAM variability that is much too persistent, particularly in the summer season. Many climate forcings such as ozone depletion/recovery and increasing greenhouse gas concentrations result in tropospheric circulation changes that project strongly onto the SAM and therefore the inability of models to simulate natural SAM variability correctly is of concern for the ability of such models to accurately predict future circulation changes. Here the underlying cause of this bias is investigated and results reveal a common deficiency in the simulation of eddy-mean flow feedbacks in the SH mid-latitudes.
Speaker's website: http://www.columbia.edu/~irs2113/
MIT Atmospheric Seminar Series (MASS)
The MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar (MASS) is a student-run weekly seminar series within PAOC. Seminar topics include all research concerning the atmosphere and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars usually take place on Monday from 12-1pm followed by a lunch with graduate students. Besides the seminar, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. The seminar series is run by graduate students and is intended mainly for students to interact with individuals outside the department, but faculty and post docs certainly participate.
Web site: http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/mass-seminar-isla-simpson-ldeo
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate (PAOC), Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact: mass at mit.edu
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Systems Thinking and the Inevitability of the Dreamliner Delays
Monday, December 02, 2013
12:00p–1:00p
Webinar
RSVP at http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_120213/zhao-webinar-dreamliner-delays.html
Speaker: Dr. Yao Zhao, Associate Professor, Rutgers University
About this presentation:
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the fastest-selling plane in the history of commercial aviation, but its development was a nightmare. The first flight was delayed by 26 months, and the first delivery was 40 months overdue with a cost overrun of at least $10 billion. Using the results of a comprehensive empirical study of the actual events and facts, this webinar will offer strong evidence suggesting that the majority of delays were intentional.
Dr. Yao Zhao will:
Describe a mathematical modeling and analysis of economic drivers in joint development programs that showed the 787's risk-sharing arrangement forced Boeing and its partners to share the "wrong" risk. This led each partner into a "prisoner's dilemma" wherein delays were in the best interests of the firms even while they were driving themselves into disaster;
Discuss the reconciliation of the analysis with empirical evidence, which reveals the rationale behind many seemingly irrational behaviors that delayed this program; and
Suggest a new "fair sharing" partnership to share the "right" risk and greatly alleviate delays for development programs of this kind in the future.
This research was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Award No. 0747779.
We invite you to join us!
MIT System Design and Management Program Systems Thinking Webinar Series
This series features research conducted by SDM faculty, alumni, students, and industry partners. The series is designed to disseminate information on how to employ systems thinking to address engineering, management, and socio-political components of complex challenges.
Web site: http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_120213/zhao-webinar-dreamliner-delays.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to all
Tickets: http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_120213/zhao-webinar-dreamliner-delays.html
Sponsor(s): Engineering Systems Division, MIT System Design and Management
For more information, contact: Lois Slavin
617-253-0812
lslavin at mit.edu
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Double Dividend: Environmental Taxes and Fiscal Reform
Monday, December 2
12pm-1:30pm
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Dale Jorgenson, Samuel W. Morris University Professor, Harvard University
ETIP/Consortium Energy Policy Seminar Series
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/cepr/
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
louisa_lund at hks.harvard.edu
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"The Egyptian Transition: The Betrayed Revolution"
WHEN Mon., Dec. 2, 2013, 1:30 – 3 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Nye A, Taubman Building, Fifth Floor, Harvard Kennedy School, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Middle East Initiative, HKS
SPEAKER(S) H.A. Hellyer, nonresident fellow, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., and the Royal United Services Institute, London
NOTE Moderated by HKS Professor Tarek Masoud
LINK http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/events/6213/ha_hellyer.html
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The Legacy of Bayard Rustin: Civil Rights Icon
WHEN Mon., Dec. 2, 2013, 3:15 – 4:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Division of Continuing Education, Grossman Common Room, 51 Brattle Street, Second Floor, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Humanities, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement
SPEAKER(S) Walter Naegle, partner of Bayard Rustin
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO 617.495.4072
NOTE On Nov. 20 President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Bayard Rustin, the great civil rights leader and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King. His partner, Walter Naegle, who accepted the medal will discuss the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and its effect on the Civil Rights movement. Join Bayard Rustin Study Group members to hear Naegle's insights on Rustin and his passion for justice.
LINK http://hilr.dce.harvard.edu/news-and-events/partner-civil-rights-icon-bayard-rustin-talk-hilr
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Nanostructured Materials and Systems for Biomedical Applications
Monday, Dec 2, 2013
4:00pm – 5:00pm
Room 521, Wyss Institute, 3 Blackfan Circle, Boston
Speaker: Jackie Y. Ying, Founding Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore
Nanostructured materials have been developed for various biomedical applications. They have been designed as stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems and sustained protein delivery systems. Nanocomposite systems have also been designed to provide simultaneous drug delivery and bioimaging functions as theranostic systems. They can be synthesized with unique carrier materials that offer synergistic therapeutic effects with the drugs to be delivered. In addition, nanostructure processing has been employed in creating synthetic cell culture substrates for the expansion and controlled differentiation of stem cells. Nanotechnology has also been combined with microfabrication to obtain engineered tissue scaffolds and diagnostic devices.
Contact information:
alison.reggio at wyss.harvard.edu
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"Nitrification in the Ocean"
Monday, December 2, 2013
4:00pm
Harvard, Haller Hall (Geo-Museum 102), 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Bess Ward, Princeton University
Reception to follow.
Earth Planetary Systems (EPS) Colloquium Series
Contact Name: Sabinna Cappo
scappo at fas.harvard.edu
Paper relating to Dr. Ward's lecture at http://www.aslo.org/lo/pdf/vol_58/issue_4/1491.pdf
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Worker Mobility in a Global Labor Market: Evidence From the United Arab Emirates
Monday, December 02, 2013
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, Building E51-151, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Suresh Naidu (Columbia)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Public Finance/Labor Workshop
For more information, contact: Economics Calendar
econ-cal at mit.edu
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"Accountability and Transparency: National Security, the Media and the Public Good."
Monday, December 2
4-6 p.m.
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, 1737 Cambridge Street, Bowie Vernon Room (K-262)
Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution with Joe Klein, Shorenstein Fellow and columnist at Time magazine; and Frank Thorp IV, a retired Navy Rear Admiral, was the U.S. Navy’s chief of information for the Department of the Navy providing strategic communication counsel to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Joint Communication) overseeing strategic communication initiatives, and chief of media for U.S. Central Command during Iraqi Freedom. Moderated by Donna Hicks, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Co-sponsored by the Program on Negotiation; the Nieman Foundation for Journalism; the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy; and The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
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"Modern Views, Unblocked: Looking into the Distance in Phu My Hung, a Vietnamese New Urban Zone"
Monday, December 2nd
Harvard, William James Hall 1550, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
4:15 p.m.
a talk by Erik Harms (Yale)
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Network Structure and the Aggregation of Information: Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
Monday, December 02, 2013
5:30p–7:00p
Harvard, Littauer M15, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Abhijit Banerjee (MIT)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Applied Theory Workshop (Joint MIT/Harvard)
For more information, contact: Theresa Benevento
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Humanizing Megascale
Monday, December 2
6:00 p.m.
Tufts University, ASEAN Auditorium, Cabot Center, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford
Moshe Safdie
The lecture will encompass Safdie's "design philosophy and approach to architecture and urban planning." For a preview, please consult the related "visual essay" available on his personal website at http://www.msafdie.com/#/philosophy/visualessay
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"Evolution culinary theory"
Tickets will be available on Tuesday, November 26th at the Harvard Box Office, located in the Holyoke Center, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
WHEN Mon., Dec 2, 2013, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Science Center Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
SPEAKER(S) Ferran Adrià, elBulli Foundation
COST Free and open to the public
NOTE The Science & Cooking lecture series runs weekly through the end of the fall semester. A full schedule, including the lecture topics, is available atseas.harvard.edu….
Each talk will begin with a 15-minute lecture by a Faculty member of the course, which will discuss one of the scientific topics from that week's class.
For a sample of what is to come, an archive of past talks (from 2010, 2011, and 2012) can be viewed at YouTube.com/Harvard
The popular public lecture series grew out of a collaboration between the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Alícia Foundation in Spain. A related Harvard College course, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter," which will be offered to undergraduates for the fourth time in the fall of 2013, uses food and cooking to explicate fundamental principles in applied physics and engineering. Blending haute cuisine with laboratory research, the chefs and food experts teach alongside Harvard faculty members. In addition to lectures and readings, lab work is an integral part of the course, and students perform experiments on topics including heat transfer, viscosity and elasticity, and crystallization and entropy.
This year, for the first time, a version of the Science & Cooking course will also be offered through HarvardX, Harvard University's newest online learning initiative. Registration for SPU27x, the massively open online course (MOOC), is open now at harvardx.harvard.edu.
The Science & Cooking Lecture Series does not replicate the content of either the Harvard College course or the HarvardX online course; rather, these public events are simply meant to inform and inspire with a fresh perspective on culinary science. For more information, visit http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking
LINK http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO; co-founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures; and author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and Modernist Cuisine
Science and Cooking
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Tuesday, December 3
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(Re)designing Democracy for the Long Term
WHEN Tue., Dec. 3, 2013, 12 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Conference Room (Room 226), Ash Center, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Ash Center
SPEAKER(S) Éloi Laurent, senior economist at OFCE (Sciences Po Centre for Economic Research in Paris, France) and visiting scholar, Center for European Studies / vsiting professor, Environmental Science and Public Policy.
Michael MacKenzie, Democracy Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School.
Graham Smith, professor of politics, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, UK and trustee for the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, currently Ash Center senior visiting scholar.
CONTACT INFO melissa_danello at hks.harvard.edu
NOTE Many of our most pressing political problems involve long-term issues such as environmental degradation, debt accumulation, education spending, or the viability of social policies such as public pension plans. Short electoral cycles create strong incentives for politicians to adopt policies that produce near-term net benefits. Moreover, individuals are often more concerned about their own immediate interests than they are about long-term collective problems. For example, environmental concerns have consistently ranked far behind immediate economic concerns in almost all democracies since the start of the “great recession” in 2008. But is this a structural problem with democracies? Are democracies inherently vulnerable to fall prey to the concerns of the present?
While there are features of democratic systems that create and nurture short-term imperatives, democracies are not without resources for overcoming these challenges. Democracies have the capacity to be dynamic and can, at least in principle, remain responsive to both short- and long-term concerns. If democratic regimes are to overcome their own susceptibilities to short-termism, they need to be equipped to do so.
Please join this seminar for a discussion on (re)designing democracy for the long-term. More specifically, what institutions and practices – constitutional protections, new forms of citizen engagement, alternative metrics and indicators, etc. – can help produce a better balance between the interests of the present and those of the future?
The workshop will begin with short presentations by specialists in the field on aspects of institutional design for long-term decision making and then open up for discussion and deliberation.
LINK http://www.ash.harvard.edu/Home/News-Events/Events/Re-designing-Democracy-for-the-Long-Term
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A Roadmap for Decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
12:30pm
Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), 2nd floor, CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Kenji Tateiwa, Manager, Nuclear Power Programs, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), "A Roadmap for Decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant"
Moderator: Susan Pharr, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, and Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics
Mr. Tateiwa works closely with US nuclear-related institutions to address the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident and to devise measures to enhance nuclear safety. At TEPCO, he has served in the Engineering Group of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant; the Nuclear Safety Group, Nuclear Power Engineering Group; and as Project Manager in the Nuclear Business Development Group, International Affairs Department. Mr. Tateiwa received his Bachelor of Engineering (Nuclear Engineering) and Master of Engineering (Energy Science and Engineering) from Kyoto University, and MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/event/kenji-tateiwa-tokyo-electric-power-company-title-tba
Co-sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies; Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE); Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP); and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA), Harvard Kennedy School.
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Cooperation in a Peer Production Economy: Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia
December 3, 2013
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2013/12/hergueux#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET.
Jerome Hergueux, Berkman Center Fellow
From Wikipedia to Open Source Software, Peer Production – a large-scale collaborative model of production primarily based on voluntary contributions – is emerging as an economically significant production model alongside firms, markets and governments. Yet, its impressive success remains difficult to explain through the assumptions of standard economic theory.
In this talk, Jerome Hergueux will engage the audience in a reflection about the prosocial foundations of cooperation in this new Peer Production economy, taking Wikipedia as one paradigmatic example. Based on the results from an online game-theoretic experiment in which hundreds of Wikipedia contributors took part, Jerome will assess economics’ traditional understanding of the other-regarding motives that can foster online cooperation. In this process, he will ask the question: how can we start to build a workable theory of individuals’ motivations to freely contribute time and efforts for the provision of global public goods?
About Jerome
Jerome is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Sciences Po (Department of Economics) and the University of Strasbourg (Institute of Political Studies) specialized in behavioral economics and experimental methods. He is a Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (2011-2014), where he does most of his Ph.D. work. At Berkman, Jerome couples tools from experimental economics and computational social science to uncover how social preferences shape our behavior over the Internet. He is strongly involved in Professor Yochai Benkler’s Cooperation project. He is also involved with the Mindsport Research Network, which he helped launch together with Professor Charles Nesson in 2011.
Jerome is primarily interested in applying the analytical tools of experimental and behavioral economics to the understanding of the evolution of culture, broadly defined as any set of norms of cooperation shared by a group of individuals trying to overcome particular collective action issues (be it in online or offline settings). He then tries to assess the relevance of those norms for determining a wide range of economic outcomes at the community level. Jerome originates from the French region of Alsace. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Finance from the University of Strasbourg and Masters degrees in International Relations and Affairs and International Economics and Trade from Sciences Po. Jerome speaks French, English and Arabic, and is heavily interested in the Middle East's politics and culture.
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Managing Asymmetric Conflict: Lessons from the Case of Israel and Hezbollah
WHEN Tue., Dec. 3, 2013, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Room 102, 38 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Religion, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Center for Middle Eastern Studies
SPEAKER(S) Daniel Sobelman, Department of International Relations, Hebrew University; former correspondent for Arab Affairs, "Ha'aretz" (1997-2003)
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO sroy at fas.harvard.edu
NOTE This event is off the record. The use of recording devices is strictly prohibited.
LINK http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/node/3490
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How vegetation alters water motion, and the feedbacks to environmental system structure and function
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 3-370, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Heidi Nepf, MIT
For over a century vegetation has been removed from channels and coastal zones to facilitate navigation and development. In recent decades, however, we have recognized the ecologic and economic benefits of aquatic vegetation. It removes nutrients, providing a buffer against coastal eutrophication. Marshes and mangroves provide coastal protection by damping waves and storm surge. Through its ecosystem services, aquatic vegetation contributes economic benefits worth over ten trillion dollars per year. This seminar will first summarize basic concepts in vegetation hydrodynamics, i.e. the physical way vegetation changes the flow field, including the coherent turbulent structures formed within the wakes behind finite patches of vegetation and in the shear layers at vegetation boundaries. Second, using these concepts we will explore two case studies. In the first case, we consider the changes in flow and sediment resuspension as the density of plants within a seagrass meadow increases. In the second case we consider the structure of the wake behind a finite patch of vegetation. Because of its porosity, some flow can pass through the patch, and this delays the formation of the von-Karman vortex street, leaving a region of low velocity and turbulence directly behind the patch [clear region in photo]. Fine particle deposition is enhanced in this region, providing a positive feedback for patch growth in the streamwise direction.
MMEC Seminar Series
Mechanics: Modeling, Experimentation, Computation. Department of Mechanical Enginnering.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mmec/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MechE Seminar Series
For more information, contact: Tony Pulsone
617.253.2294
pulsone at mit.edu
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Deans' Design Challenge Kickoff
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EST)
Harvard Innovation Lab, 125 Western Avenue, Boston
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/deans-design-challenge-kickoff-tickets-9429254153
Join us at the 2014 Deans' Design Challenge Kickoff
The Deans’ Design Challenge: Urban Life 2030 seeks proposals that envision order of magnitude improvements to the liveability of our cities by 2030.
The world’s urban population is forecasted to grow by about 50% in the next 15 years, inducing a monumental transformation in the lives of our city dwellers. Most of this urbanization will occur in less developed regions, where new population density will compound the effects of existing problems of transportation, safety, food, water, and inequality. And modern cities carry with them inherent challenges for all regions and economies, especially as the pace and scale of resource consumption intensifies.
The Deans’ Design Challenge: Urban Life 2030 calls upon Harvard students to apply their creativity to find collaborative, entrepreneurial, and sustainable solutions to best address the urban issues accompanying this population growth.
Please check out the i-lab website: http://i-lab.harvard.edu/experiential-learning/deans-design-challenge to learn more about the topics, and the Challenge.
A shuttle to the i-lab will depart from GSD's Gund Hall at 5:30 and 6:00pm.
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Wednesday, December 4
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Transportation System Resilience, Extreme Weather, and Climate Change
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
12:00 - 12:45 p.m., Eastern Time
55 Broadway, Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Susanne E. DesRoches, LEED AP BD+C, Assistant Chief, Resilience and Sustainability, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
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System and conscience: NSA bulk surveillance and the problem of freedom
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin 119, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
The talk will discuss NSA bulk surveillance, the oversight systems that exist as we know them, and the role of Edward Snowden and the journalists he worked with as a case study in what it means to be “free” for human beings always and necessarily embedded in imperfect overlapping systems of affordance and constraint, and how the ethical question “how shall I be as a human being embedded in such systems?” connects to the political question “why should we as a polity embrace an open society, and how should we go about becoming and maintaining ourselves as such a society?”
Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Since the 1990s he has played arole in characterizing the role of information commons and decentralized collaboration to innovation, information production, and freedom in the networked economy and society. His books include The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom (Yale University Press 2006), which won academic awards from the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Association, and the McGannon award for social and ethical relevance in communications. In 2012 he received a lifetime achievement award from Oxford University “in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the study and public understanding of the Internet and information goods.” His work is socially engaged, winning him the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award in 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award for 2007, and the Public Knowledge IP3 Award in 2006. It is also anchored in the realities of markets, and was cited as "perhaps the best work yet about the fast moving, enthusiast-driven Internet" by the Financial Times and named best business book about the future in 2006 by Strategy and Business. Benkler has advised governments and international organizations on innovation policy and telecommunications, and serves on the boards or advisory boards of several nonprofits engaged in working towards an open society. His work can be freely access at benkler.org.
Center for Research on Computation and Society
Contact: Michael Wojcik
Email: wojcik at seas.harvard.edu
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xTalks: Online teacher education in Pakistan
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
2:00p–3:00p
MIT, Building 12-122, access via 60 Vassar Street or 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Haynes Miller, Dick Larson, Eric Klopfer, and others
MIT faculty members Miller, Larson, Klopfer and others who were engaged in an online teacher training program in Pakistan, will be joined by Vijay Kumar, Brandon Muramatsu & Lourdes Aleman to talk about their experiences and lessons learned from developing a program that highlighted pedagogies and educational technologies used at MIT. The courses in the program featured games-based learning, simulations, visualizations and concept-based applications.
xTalks: Digital Discourses
This series provides a forum to facilitate awareness, deep understanding and transference of educational innovations at MIT and elsewhere. We hope to foster a community of educators, researchers, and technologists engaged in developing and supporting effective learning experiences through online learning environments and other digital technologies.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): OEIT- Office of Educational Innovation and Technology
For more information, contact: Mary Curtin
617-252-1981
oeit-all at mit.edu
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How Quantum Mechanics Can Help Solve the World's Energy Problems
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
3:00p–4:15p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Professor Emily A. Carter
Hoyt C. Hottel Lecture
Chemical Engineering Seminar Series
Web site: https://web.mit.edu/cheme/news/hottel/index_2013.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Chemical Engineering Department
For more information, contact:
Melanie Miller
617-253-6500
melmils at mit.edu
-------------------------------
Indigenous Jurisdiction, Customary Laws, & Alternative Conflict Resolution
December 04, 2013
4 p.m.
Healey Library, 4-031 UMass Boston, Dorchester
On December 4, from 4-5:30 pm, Ricardo Colmenares Olivar, retired Superior Court of Appeals chief judge and professor of law at Zulia University (Venezuela), will present a lecture on Indigenous customary law, Indigenous jurisdiction, and alternative conflict resolution as part of the new Latin American constitutionalism, focusing on the
Venezuelan case, and how this legal framework is being applied to address conflicts of jurisdiction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous authorities. Nicole Friederichs,
practitioner-in-residence, Indian Law and Indigenous Peoples Clinic, Suffolk University Law School, will discuss similar cases relative to tribal nations in the United States.
Sponsors for this event include:
Consulate General of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Boston
Native American & Indigenous Studies (NAIS) Program, UMass Boston
Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global
Governance, UMass Boston
Faculty of Political and Legal Sciences of Zulia University
Institute for New England Native American Studies, UMass Boston
A reception will follow. For more information, please contact
Professor Josh Reid, Director of the NAIS Program.
Anyone requiring disability-related accommodations, including dietary
accommodations, should visit www.ada.umb.edu.
Open to public
http://www.umb.edu/news_events_media/events/indigenous_jurisdiction_customary_laws_alternative_conflict_resolution
---------------------------------------
“Weather, Salience of Climate Change, and Congressional Voting”
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
4:10pm - 5:30pm
Harvard, Littauer L-382, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
Erich Muehlegger, Harvard University, and Evan Herrnstadt, University of Michigan
Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k96249
Contact Name: Jason Chapman
Jason_Chapman at harvard.edu
For further information, contact Professor Stavins at the Kennedy School (617-495-1820), Professor Weitzman at the Department of Economics (617-495-5133), or the course assistant, Jason Chapman (617-496-8054), or visit the seminar web site.
-----------------------------------
MIT Africa Interest Group Meeting
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 34-401, Grier Room A, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
MIT Africa Interest Group Meetings
Any one with an interest in Africa is welcome to join this twice per semester meet-up for faculty, staff and students to network and listen to presentation about work/experiences, etc. across Africa and ways MIT can engage more generally.
Any one with an interest in Africa is welcome to join this twice per semester meet-up for faculty, staff and students to network and listen to presentation about work/experiences, etc. across Africa and ways MIT can engage more generally.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, MISTI
For more information, contact: Julia Reynolds-Cuellar
617-324-4285
jreyn at mit.edu
---------------------------------
FOCUS: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
7:00p–8:30p
MIT, Building E62-262, 100 Main Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Goleman???s latest book is Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. The book argues that new information technologies will create ???radical transparency,??? allowing us to know the environmental, health, and social consequences of what we buy. As shoppers use point-of-purchase ecological comparisons to guide their purchases, market share will shift to support steady, incremental upgrades in how products are made ??? changing every thing for the better. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, was published in 2006. Social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence, can now be understood in terms of recent findings from neuroscience. Goleman???s book describes the many implications of this new science, including for altruism, parenting, love, health, learning and leadership.
Web site: http://thecenter.mit.edu
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, MIT Leadership Center
For more information, contact: 617-254-6030
info at thecenter.mit.edu
----------------------------------
Global Water Security: a plan to ensure global access to clean water
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
7:00p–10:00p
MIT, Building 32-123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Students in Mission 2017 (12.000) present their plan for global water security before a panel of international experts and the general public. Presentation and Q & A followed by reception.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Terrascope
For more information, contact: Aczel, Debra Gross
253-4074
daczel at mit.edu
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Thursday, December 5
---------------------------
17th Annual Photonics Center Symposium
Dec 5, 2013
8:00 AM
The Boston University Photonics Center, 8 Saint Mary's Street, Colloquium Room, 9th Floor, Boston
The Boston University Photonics Center 17th Annual Photonics Center Symposium focuses on innovations at the intersection of micro/nanofabrication technology, biology, and biomedicine. Renowned researchers from academia and industry will lead presentations.
More at http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewevent/323/boston-university-photonics-center-17th-annual-photonics-center-symposium-
--------------------------------------
The Burden of Disease Attributable to Ambient Air Pollution
Thursday, December 5, 2013
4:00pm
Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Aaron Cohen, Principal Scientist, Health Effects Institute
http://chinaproject.harvard.edu/event/Cohen131205
Contact Name: Chris Nielsen
nielsen2 at fas.harvard.edu
Sponsored by China Project, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
----------------------------------
Perceptions of Muslims: Discourses after the Boston Bombings and the Woolwich Murder
WHEN Thu., Dec. 5, 2013, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South 010, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Conferences, Humanities, Lecture, Religion, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Middle East Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School; Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Prince Alwaleed bin Tala Islamic Studies Program; The Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School; The British Council
SPEAKER(S) Diane L. Moore, director, Religious Literacy Project, and senior lecturer, Religious Studies and Education, HDS; Azeem Ibrahim, founder, Ibrahim Foundation; Suhaib Webb, imam, Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center; Roland Schatz, founder and CEO, Media Tenor International; Maria Ebrahimji, journalist and co-founder, I Speak for Myself, Inc.
---------------------------------
Strategic Thinking and Value of Reasoning: Theory and Applications to Five 'Little Treasures' of Game Theory
Thursday, December 05, 2013
4:00p–5:30p
MIT, Building E51-151, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Antonio Penta (Wisconsin)
Web site: https://economics.mit.edu/files/9375
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT/Harvard Theory Workshop
For more information, contact: Theresa Benevento
theresa at mit.edu
-----------------------------------
The Piracy Crusade: How the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties
December 5, 2013
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
In the name of combating “digital piracy,” the music industry and its allies have spent billions of dollars to lobby for stronger copyright laws, shuttered hundreds of promising businesses, and sued tens of thousands of American internet users. Rutgers University Media Studies Professor Aram Sinnreich investigates the rationale behind these
decisions, and explores their implications for free speech, civil liberties, and market innovation, in his soon-to-be published book, The Piracy Crusade. Ultimately, he argues, we are squandering our best hopes for a functional democracy and a thriving marketplace in the 21st Century in order to chase a phantom in an unwinnable war. Instead, we
must focus on new laws, policies and economic models that reward and thrive on the free sharing of information in cyberspace and beyond.
-------------------------------------
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center: InnovateMass Info Session
Thursday, December 5, 2013
4:00pm - 6:00pm
Venture Café (Cancun) @ Cambridge Innovation Center, One Broadway, Cambridge
Are you a clean tech company looking to demonstrate your technology? The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is seeking applicatio ns for the InnovateMass program. The program provides up to $150,000 in funding and technical support for projects that deploy new clean energy technologies or innovative combinations of existing technologies, and also cont ribute to Massachusetts’ continued clean energy leadership. MassCEC staff w ill be available to give you more information on the awards and how to apply.
----------------------------------
The Gettysburg Project: Understanding and Revitalizing Civic Engagement
WHEN Thu., Dec 5, 2013, 4:15 – 5:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Belfer, Weil Town Hall, Lobby Level, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Lecture, Social Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Hauser Institute for Civil Society at the Center for Public Leadership
SPEAKER(S) ARCHON FUNG | Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, Harvard Kennedy School
MARSHALL GANZ | Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
LINK http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/hauser/news-events/upcoming-events/20131121
-----------------------------------
Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid
Thursday, December 5
4:30 PM
Tufts, Cabot 703, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford
The Fletcher Humanitarian Action Committee and Global Women invite you to please join us for a book launch and talk with Jessica Alexander
A former Fulbright scholar and current adjunct professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University, and the Wagner School of Public Health at New York University, Ms. Alexander began her humanitarian career in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
----------------------------------
Long-Form Journalism: Inside "The Atlantic"
Thursday, December 05, 2013
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: James Fallows, Corby Kummer
Some have called long-form journalism an endangered species. But ground-breaking articles requiring months of research and writing continue to appear. Why is such work important? How is it created? James Fallows and Corby Kummer of "The Atlantic" will chart the journey of a major feature story from conception to publication and speculate about the future of long-form writing in the digital age. Tom Levenson, Prof. of Writing at MIT, will moderate.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): CMS, Communications Forum
For more information, contact:
comm-forum-www at mit.edu
--------------------------------------
Buddhist Self-Sacrifice in Tibet: The Survivors Speak
WHEN Thu., Dec. 5, 2013, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Braun Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film, Lecture
SPONSOR Buddhist Ministry Initiative
CONTACT Leslie MacPherson Artinian, 617.496.2943
NOTE Fulbright Scholar Patrick Dowd will report on his interviews with members of the Tibetan Buddhist community in Dharamsala, which lost more than 100 of its members to self-immolation in protest of the Chinese occupation last year. The film Memories of a Previous Life, about a Canadian boy identified as a tulku (reborn Tibetan lama) and trained in India and Harvard, will be screened before the lecture.
------------------------------------
EnergyBar: Sustainable America Edition
Thursday, December 5th
5:30-8:30 PM
Greentown Labs, 28 Dane Street, Somerville
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/energybar-sustainable-america-edition-tickets-9194770807
Please join Greentown Labs & Sustainable America for a specialEnergyBar where we will announce the winners of the Sustainable America Cleantech Fellowship at Greentown Labs!
Over the last few months, Greentown Labs has partnered with Sustainable America to offer an amazing opportunity to one deserving cleantech start-up engaged in sustainable solutions focused on transportation or agriculture!
The competition was open to start-ups engaged in sustainable solutions focused on transportation or agriculture. The winning team will receive a $5,000 cash grant for general operating expenses, rent covering a one-year residence in the co-working space at Greentown Labs in Somerville, Mass. (worth up to $5,000), and a brand-identity audit with follow-up advisement from marketing firm Ocupop.
Finalists will attend a one-day business plan competition and networking event on December 5th in conjunction with Greentown Labs' EnergyBar, where the winner will be announced.
----------------------------------
Meet Your Local Garbage Patch: Surface to Seafloor Marine Debris Cleanup in Boston Harbor and the Gulf of Maine
Thursday, December 5
7 pm
NE Aquarium, Simons IMAX Theatre, 1 Central Wharf, Boston
RSVP at http://support.neaq.org/site/Calendar/358008333
Rachael Z. Miller, Founder and Executive Director, The Rozalia Project
The oceanic garbage patches get a lot of press, but do you know what is floating right here in Boston Harbor? The Rozalia Project uses underwater robots, nets and hands to clean our ocean from surface to seafloor while studying the problem and running education programs. They operate from aboard the 60-foot sailing vessel American Promise in the Gulf of Maine and Massachusetts Bay as well as from partner docks and vessels throughout the U.S. Rachael Miller, Rozalia Project's founder and executive director, will lead an introduction about the problem of marine debris in our waters here in New England (as well as those thousands of miles away) and follow up with Rozalia Project's trash-hunting adventures, including getting attacked by a lobster, freeing an octopus and making some unusual finds while picking up over 500,000 pieces of ocean trash with 10,500 participants all over the U.S. Register here.
------------------------
Friday, December 6
------------------------
"The Power of Promise: Examining the Feasibility of A Rapid Expansion of Nuclear Energy in India."
Friday, December 6, 2013
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Bell Hall, Belfer Building, 5th Floor, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
M. V. Ramana, Nuclear Futures Laboratory & Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University
Science, Technology, and Engineering Seminar
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
Louisa_Lund at hks.harvard.edu
--------------------------------
Rambax MIT Senegalese Drum Ensemble
Friday, December 06, 2013
8:00p–10:00p
MIT, Lobdell, Stratton Student Center, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Lamine Toure, director
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
For more information, contact: Clarise Snyder
mta-request at mit.edu
---------------------------
Saturday, December 7
---------------------------
Rug Sale to Stop Female Genital Mutilation
December 7
11 to 4
Unity of God Church, 6 William Street, Somerville, along College Avenue, near Davis Square
Healthy Tomorrow, a local group that works with a Malian NGO Sini Sanuman to stop female genital mutilation, is selling fairly traded, hand-crafted rugs from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India. Proceeds will help end FGM through media, public discussion and lobbying.
See the website http://www.StopExcison.net or call (617) 776-6524
------------------------------------
IdeaStorm- High School Student Entrepreneurship Event
Saturday, December 7, 2013
1:00pm - 4:00pm
Microsoft NERD Center 1 Memorial Drive Cambridge
RSVP at http://youngentrepreneurchallenge.com/ideastorm/
Description: IdeaStorm is a mini-version of the Young Entrepreneur Challenge for high school students. And the best part? It's free!
Come into Boston and join other local high school students in a down and dirty brainstorming and business pitch event.
------------------------------------
Fun Tech Forum: TECH SHOW TIME III
Saturday, December 07, 2013
2:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building NW10-lounge, 143 Albany Street, Cambridge
Arts in ancient China
Students will talk about how different arts originated in ancient China
Discussion will be lead after the talk.
Snacks and beverage will be provided.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): GSC Funding Board, MIT CAST, MIT CSSA
For more information, contact: Chen Gu
guchch at mit.edu
-------------------------
Sunday, December 8
-------------------------
HEET Weatherization Work Party
December 8
11am
Temple Shalom, Medford
Come along to help out and learn how to save energy in your own home. Lunch will be served and a good time had by all.
Sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VuuEdaLoCDcnvzjOoQ-VMa8Q79btjjud3ila_uO2fXo/viewform
--------------------------
Monday, December 9
-------------------------
"Manipulation of Day-ahead Electricity Prices through Virtual Bidding"
Monday, December 9, 2013
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Lunch will be provided
with Chiara LoPrete, HUCE Fellow
ETIP/Consortium Energy Policy Seminar Series
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/cepr/
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
louisa_lund at hks.harvard.edu
------------------------------------
"The Accidental Chemist"
WHEN Mon., Dec. 9, 2013, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Science Center Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
SPEAKER(S) Jack Bishop, Cook's Illustrated, The Science of Good Cooking; Dan Souza Cook's Illustrated
COST Free and open to the public
NOTE The Science & Cooking lecture series runs weekly through the end of the fall semester. A full schedule, including the lecture topics, is available at seas.harvard.edu….
Each talk will begin with a 15-minute lecture by a Faculty member of the course, which will discuss one of the scientific topics from that week's class.
For a sample of what is to come, an archive of past talks (from 2010, 2011, and 2012) can be viewed at YouTube.com/Harvard
The popular public lecture series grew out of a collaboration between the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Alícia Foundation in Spain. A related Harvard College course, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter," which will be offered to undergraduates for the fourth time in the fall of 2013, uses food and cooking to explicate fundamental principles in applied physics and engineering. Blending haute cuisine with laboratory research, the chefs and food experts teach alongside Harvard faculty members. In addition to lectures and readings, lab work is an integral part of the course, and students perform experiments on topics including heat transfer, viscosity and elasticity, and crystallization and entropy.
This year, for the first time, a version of the Science & Cooking course will also be offered through HarvardX, Harvard University's newest online learning initiative. Registration for SPU27x, the massively open online course (MOOC), is open now at harvardx.harvard.edu.
The Science & Cooking Lecture Series does not replicate the content of either the Harvard College course or the HarvardX online course; rather, these public events are simply meant to inform and inspire with a fresh perspective on culinary science. For more information, visit http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking
LINK http://www.seas.harvard.edu/cooking
-------------------------------------
Reanimation, an Ongoing Performance
Monday, December 09, 2013
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building E15-001, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Joan Jonas
In Joan Jonas's own words, Reanimation "is partly an homage to spiritual aspects of nature [...], but as glaciers are now melting, the work [...] reflects the present-day situation." The piece is based on the 1968 novel Under the Glacier by Icelandic writer Halld'r Laxness. Originally developed at MIT in 2010, the piece combines sound, video, sculpture, and drawing, and was shown for the first time in its finished form at Documenta 13 in 2012.
Joan Jonas, ACT Professor Emerita, is a pioneer of video and performance art. Her experiments in the 1960s and 1970s were crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theater. Her recent live web performance at Tate Modern continues her exploration of the relationship between new digital media and performance. At once introspective, narrative, and symbolic, Jonas's work weaves nonlinear narrative structures, poetry, mythology, and folk songs with themes such as memory, embodiment, and movement. Jonas has exhibited extensively including at the Venice Biennale and six times at Documenta. In 2009 she received the Guggenheim Museum's Lifetime Achievement Award. Her work is currently included in two shows in Sweden: Joan Jonas: Reanimation (Kulturhuset, Stockholm) and Theatrical Fields (Bildmuseet, Umea).
ACT Lecture - Experiments in Thinking, Action, and Form: Cinematic Migrations
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact: Laura Anca Chichisan
617-253-5229
act at mit.edu
----------------------------
Tuesday, December 10
----------------------------
Time Trade Circle Orientation
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callender Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Greater-Boston-area-freegan-and-dumpster-diving-meetup/events/150691282/
I am not attending these (I am already a member) but I thought I'd post them FYI. These are orientations for joining the Time Trade Circle. (You have to attend one orientation to join.)
The TTC is an alternative economy where people trade services for hours, not money. All services are (more-or-less) valued equally, so each hour of work you do is an hour put in your account that you can then spend on someone else's services. Anyway, it being not about money, I thought TTC seemed like a freegan notion, so I thought I'd share here:
https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1079
These meetings will be led by Carol. Materials will also be available in Braille. Children are welcome. Please try to arrive on time!
Directions to the Cambridge Community Center
(Wheelchair accessible space):
From Central Square (on the T red line), walk out Western Avenue. There is a traffic light at Howard Street, and a small convenience store on the corner. Turn right. The Center is about 150' from there, on your left, at the corner of Howard & Callender: a large red building with stairs and a ramp in front.
--------------------------------
Re-Thinking Intellectual Property Rights Models for the Poor
December 10, 2013
12:30 pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2013/12/boettiger#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET.
Sara Boettiger, Global Access in Action Project
We are depending on new technologies to meet the challenges ahead for our planet. Facing a growing population, resource constraints, climate change and a global food system under stress, we are pinning our hopes on new technology. But we don’t do a good job of leveraging our innovation systems to impact the poor. 780 million still lack access to clean water. 1/5 of humanity lives without electricity. 80% of sub-Saharan Africa is farmed with a hand-hoe. IPR is the fundamental driver of innovation, but donors, practitioners and policymakers are more divided than ever in their views on how IPR can be used to impact the poor. Sara Boettiger will discuss the need to re-think existing models (e.g. patent pools, clearinghouses, humanitarian use licensing), re-invent our research agenda and work to shift the international debate.
About Sara
Sara Boettiger is Senior Advisor at Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and Assistant Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley. She is co-founder of four non-profits centered on the application of technology to meet the challenges of global poverty, including: PIPRA, Global Access in Action, GATD and AgPartnerXChange. Dr. Boettiger serves on World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils and is active in corporate governance, currently serving on the Board of the Planetary Skin Institute. Dr. Boettiger’s work focuses on: demand-driven innovation, public-private partnerships, commercialization strategies, intellectual property rights, and new product development principles applied to technologies for the poor. She has consulted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank, McKinsey & Company, and many others. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Agricultural and Resource Economics and publishes on the law and economics of intellectual property rights, innovation, and poverty.
----------------------------------
Bayonne Revisited: Water Partnerships One Year Later
Tuesday, December 10
2 p.m. Eastern (11 a.m. Pacific, noon Mountain and 1 p.m. Central)
RSVP at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/242689038?utm_source=SCN+InBox+e-Newsletter&utm_campaign=c82bd35a19-UWWebinar11-22-2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_11e7ac761c-c82bd35a19-188562049
This free, one-hour webinar will describe the progress made since United Water and global investment firm KKR signed a water partnership deal with Bayonne, N.J. in December 2012.
Many cities like Bayonne are seeking to limit water and sewer tariff increases while crumbling infrastructure and new regulatory requirements cause ever-increasing demands for capital improvements and spending. The ability to unlock value in existing water and wastewater assets to reduce outstanding indebtedness and/or fund new capital projects while also reducing operational costs, better managing risks, and securing long-term guarantees are among the benefits several other cities are considering by opting for alternative financing approaches. Learn what United Water’s solution has meant for Bayonne over the first year since the deal was closed.
This webinar will feature Joseph P. Baumann, Jr., an attorney representing the Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority, and Dan Sugarman, vice president of marketing & strategy for United Water.
Join us Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. Pacific, noon Mountain, 1 p.m. Central and 2 p.m. Eastern. (Please note your time zone!)
---------------------------------
Delegating Responsibility to the Market: How Competition Shapes Fairness Perceptions
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
2:30p–4:00p
MIT, Building E62-650, 100 Main Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Christian Zehnder (Lausanne)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Organizational Economics
For more information, contact: Theresa Benevento
theresa at mit.edu
-------------------------------
Remote Collaboration at Google: Overcoming the Tyranny of Distance
Tues, Dec 10
6:30pm – 9:00pm
Google Cambridge, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/demetrios-karis-discusses-remote-collaboration-at-google-overcoming-the-tyranny-of-distance-tickets-9257717081
Demetrios Karis
Abstract
It has always been difficult to collaborate effectively with distant colleagues, but can we now overcome these difficulties with new technology? In five studies carried out over a year, we studied remote collaboration within Google. Come hear why audio conference calls have completely disappeared and how “video portals” have emerged spontaneously. Distance still matters, but much less than it used to. I’ll explain what currently works well, the conditions that promote effective collaboration, whether travel is still required, and what problems remain.
Bio
Demetrios has been researching, designing, and evaluating consumer products and services for over 25 years. He helped design GTE Airfone and several speech-based systems, and then for ten years led the SuperPages.com user interface group at GTE Labs, where he established a program for developing a comprehensive understanding of the user experience. Demetrios also worked on smartphone user experience and mobile phone accessibility and established and led the User Experience team at the Verizon Wireless LTE Innovation Center. He has published dozens of articles in diverse areas, including autobiographical memory, cognitive psychophysiology, automation using speech recognition, human factors, and usability evaluation methodologies. Demetrios received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Cornell University. He is now an independent consultant, as well as a faculty member in Bentley University’s User Experience Certificate program.
Evening Schedule
6:30 – 7:00 Networking over pizza and beverages
7:00 – 8:30 Meeting
8:30 – 9:00 CHI Dessert and more networking!
*****************
--------------------
Upcoming Events
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*****************
edX Datajam 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:00 AM
to Thursday, December 12, 2013, 5:00 PM
edX Office, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge
Open edX, in collaboration with the Department of Education, the White House and the broader Open edX community, is sponsoring a DataJam to promote the Obama administration’s mission of advancing technology in education. For detailed information for how you can participate in the Datajam go to http://innovate.edx.org.
Event Agenda:
Day 1
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM - Location TBD
1:00 PM - 7:00 PM - edX HQ, 11 Cambridge
Day 2
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM - edX HQ, 11 Cambridge
--------------------------------------
"Ancient Lessons for a Sustainable Future in the Fire-Prone Southwest US"
Wednesday December 11th, 2013
Harvard, Putnam Lab, Peabody Museum, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge
12:00 p.m.
a talk by Christopher I. Roos (Southern Methodist University)
----------------------------------
Draping Materials: Polymer-Nanoparticle Ribbons, Helices, and Fabrics
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
3:30p–4:45p
MIT, Building 4-237, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. Alfred J. Crosby (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
MIT Program in Polymer Science and Technology (PPST) Polymer Seminar Series
PPST sponsors a series of seminars covering a broad range of topics of general interest to the polymer community, featuring speakers from both on and off campus. We invite the polymer community at MIT and elsewhere to participate. For further information, contact Professor Brad Olsen at bdolsen at mit.edu. All talks take place on Wednesdays.
Web site: http://polymerscience.mit.edu/?page_id=1267
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Program in Polymer Science and Technology (PPST)
For more information, contact: Gregory Sands
(617) 253-0949
ppst-www at mit.edu
------------------------------------
How Does Thoreau Matter? Environmentalism and the Changing American Landscape
Wednesday, December 11
6 pm
Harvard Museum of Natural History, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Free and open to the public
Henry David Thoreau is widely viewed as an icon of the conservation movement and an early champion of America's pastoral landscapes. But do we read Thoreau accurately, or are we missing key parts of his message? What kind of landscape vision might Thoreau advocate were he living within today's complex environmental movement? Environmental historians Conevery Bolton Valencius, Brian Donahue, and ecologist David Foster will explore Thoreau's relevance to our lives today. Reception to follow discussion in the HMNH’s new exhibit, Thoreau’s Maine Woods: A Journey in Photographs with Scot Miller.
----------------------------------
MIT Water Summit
December 12th
8:30am - 6pm
MIT, Building NE25, Whitehead Institute, Five Cambridge Center, Cambridge
RSVP at http://mit.universitytickets.com/user_pages/event.aspx?id=294&cid=35&p=1
Free for MIT, $3 for other students, $10 for others
The MIT Water Summit is bringing together experts from industry, academia, government, and investment to discuss the challenges and cutting-edge developments in the water sector.
The all-day event will feature 4 panels:
Who Owns Water?
The Food-Water Nexus: The Buzz
The Water-Energy Nexus
Emerging Water Pollutants
Go to waterclub.mit.edu for more details.
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Evolving Landscape and Regulatory Framework for Solar PV in Massachusetts and California
December 13, 2013
9 am to 12:15 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 13th Floor, Boston
Installation of solar PV in New England and other U.S. states has been accelerating rapidly in recent years-due largely to falling PV prices and favorable regulatory mechanisms. In Massachusetts, for example, Governor Patrick's PV target of having 250 MW installed by 2017 was met early this year (nearly 5 years ahead of schedule), inspiring the Administration to set a new, higher target of 1,600 MW installed by 2020! While PV has many benefits related to being a renewable resource that can produce electricity coincident with New England's summer peak, many wonder whether it can be procured at lower cost (i.e., with fewer subsidies).
Come join us as we take a close look at Massachusetts' evolving landscape and regulatory framework for PV. The timing is ripe, as DOER has recently commissioned a series of PV related studies on the PV market, the solar carve-out, and net metering-and is readying new draft regulations on the SREC market. Meanwhile these issues remain an area of keen interest and focus for the Massachusetts Legislature and diverse stakeholders.
We have an excellent panel to help us explore this important regional case study on PV in Massachusetts:
Commissioner Mark Sylvia, MA DOER
Sen. Ben Downing, Chair, MA Joint Committee on Telecom, Utilities, & Energy
Ron Gerwatowski, Senior VP, National Grid
Carrie Cullen-Hitt, Senior VP, State Affairs, Solar Energy Industries Association
To provide a counter-point, and seek lessons being learned from outside the region, we will begin the Roundtable with a presentation on California's evolving PV market and regulatory landscape by Nick Chaset, Special Adviser on Distributed Resources to Governor Brown and the California PUC.
Raab Associates Presents: The 138th NE Electricity Restructuring Roundtable
Free and open to the public.
No advanced registration!!
The presentations from our November 15th Roundtable, Natural Gas & Electricity Interface Challenges in New England can be accessed for free on our website at
http://www.raabassociates.org/main/roundtable.asp
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Christmas Bird Count Bird Walk
Sunday, December 15
12:30 to 2:30 pm
Meeting place given upon registration, contact Elizabeth Wylde at friendsoffreshpond at yahoo.com or call 617-349-6489 and leave your name and phone number.
This year, for the first time, our December bird walk will coincide with the National Audubon Society’s 114th annual Christmas Bird Count. Fresh Pond is important to the CBC because it is the only location where several of the diving duck species are found. We will join tens of thousands of other birders throughout the Americas who identify and count all of the birds they see on one specific day in one area. Audubon and other organizations use data collected in this longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations - and to help guide conservation action. We will use a telescope to look at waterfowl on Fresh Pond, and binoculars to see other birds. Beginners are welcome. We have binoculars to lend and will show you how to use them.
This event is FREE and open to the public. Children are welcome in the company of an adult.
Offered by Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation, December 2013
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Farm Hack Discussion
Wed 12/18
6pm
Community Teamwork, Board Room (2nd floor), 155 Merrimack Street, 2nd Floor Lowell, Massachusetts 01852
Register for this free event online at: http://farmhack-lowell.eventbrite.com
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/apitronics-farm-hack-new-entry-tickets-9275325749
The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Farm Hack/Apitronics, and Lowell Makes invite you to an interactive dialog between farmers and those who want to help level the playing field for them and help support access to fresh, nutritious and sustainable local food.
Apitronics is a local start-up that is making wireless sensor and automation networks for agriculture better and more affordable. Louis Thiery and RJ Steinert, the company founders, are both board members of Farm Hack, an open-source community for resilient agriculture. As such, they are focused on helping diversified and regenerative farms become more efficient and productive. For more information, visit www.Apitronics.com.
Their systems are built on their own open-source platform encouraging tweaking and innovation on a farm level. The hardware is extremely flexible and designed for prototyping new ideas, but the most common applications include weather stations, field monitors, greenhouse alert systems and automation.
Lowell Makes is a non-profit community workshop and education center located in downtown Lowell, and is helping to organize this event as a way to extend the technical innovation being done by its members into the local farming community. For more information, visit www.LowellMakes.com.
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Opportunity
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Sustainable Minds®, a Cambridge Innovation Center startup, has developed a cloud-based tool that makes it easier to “design greener products right, from the start.” Their Sustainable Minds software lets product designers explore, up front, the environmental impacts of design decisions throughout a product’s life cycle, from materials and manufacturing, to consumables and energy use, to end-of-life considerations such as recycling and waste. More info:http://ist.mit.edu/news/sustainable_minds
Subscriptions Available!
This year the Director of the Sustainability Initiative at Sloan signed up for 100 Sustainable Minds subscriptions. They’ve reserved 30 subscriptions for their courses; 70 are available at no cost to MIT community members. They hope that teams developing products for competitions around campus will jump on the chance to use the software. Contact Jason Jay (jjay at mit.edu) to inquire about the subscription.
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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!
Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Membership in the coop costs $2.50 per quart. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch. No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.
For more information checkout.
https://sites.google.com/site/somervilleyogurtcoop/home
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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images
Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera? With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat. However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.
HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.
Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras. They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way). Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.
Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.
The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.
Go to Sagewell.com. Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return. Then click on "Here" to request the report.
That's it. When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.
With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ
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HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to Cambridge residents.
During the assessment, the energy specialist will:
Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on your energy bills. You might as well use the service.
Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729. A Next Step Living Representative will call to schedule your assessment.
HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the services and rebates possible.
(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home Energy Assessment. We won’t keep the data or sell it.)
(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)
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Resource
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide
SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!
To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha at sbnboston.org
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Free Monthly Energy Analysis
CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.
https://www.carbonsalon.com/
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Boston Food System
"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."
The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas. Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities. Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers. Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.
It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs
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Artisan Asylum http://artisansasylum.com/
Sprout & Co: Community Driven Investigations
Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation, contact jmatthaei at wellesley.edu
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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Thanks to
Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area: http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com
MIT Events: http://events.mit.edu
MIT Energy Club: http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Mass Climate Action: http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar/events/index.php
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
Microsoft NERD Center: http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
Startup and Entrepreneurial Events: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/calendar
High Tech Events: http://harddatafactory.com/Johnny_Monsarrat/index.html
Cambridge Civic Journal: http://www.rwinters.com
Boston Area Computer User Groups: http://www.bugc.org/
Arts and Cultural Events List: http://aacel.blogspot.com/
Boston Events Insider: http://bostoneventsinsider.com/boston_events/
Nerdnite: http://boston.nerdnite.com/
More information about the Act-MA
mailing list