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@world.std.com
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Occupy Detroit Occupies an Abandoned Neighborhood
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/16/1046263/-Occupy-Detroit-Occupies-an-Abandoned-Neighborhood
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No Energy (and Other) Events on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve.
Have a Happy X, Merry New, and Bah, Humbug.
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Computational Biases in Decision Making
Monday, December 19
2:00 - 3:00pm
MIT, Building E62-550, 100 Main Street, Cambridge
MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering Seminar
Vanessa Janowski, CalTech
Abstract: Vanessa will discuss two studies focused on computational biases in decision making and an fMRI study on social decision-making. The first is an eyetracking study investigating the relationship between loss aversion and attention: she finds a correlation between how loss averse subjects are and how long they look at losses vs. gains when evaluating mixed gambles. In a second study using Mouselab, she will show how attention influences multi-attribute choice. She finds that the display of different attributes has a significant effect on search among those attributes and, ultimately, choice. Finally, she will present an fMRI study on making decisions for others vs. ourselves in which she finds overlapping areas of the vmPFC to be involved in both types of decisions, though decisions for others appear to be modulated by areas involved in social cognition.
Bio: Vanessa Janowski is completing the final year of a PhD in Economics at Caltech, with a focus on behavioral and experimental economics and neuroeconomics. She holds an MSc in Applicable Mathematics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from Yale University.
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Innovations in Clean Water Technology
Tues, Dec 20
6:00PM
Belmont Media Center, 9 Lexington St, Belmont, MA 02478 Phone: 617-484-2443
John H. Lienhard, MIT
Contemporary Science Issues and Innovations
Worldwide, the need for drinkable water is increasing while the supply is decreasing. In some places water is simply too scarce; but in many areas there is plenty of water — it’s just not drinkable. Where the supply is seawater or brackish water, one possible solution is desalination, the removal of the salt. There has been impressive progress in this complex technology in recent years. The lab of Professor John Lienhard at MIT is a world leader in this field and has developed a number of desalination technologies. Professor Lienhard discusses these recent advances and how this technology can address the urgent need for drinkable water as the present natural supply is rapidly dwindling.
Professor John H. Lienhard V is the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the Associate Department Head for Education, and Director of the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM. Dr. Lienhard is an international expert on desalination and has received many awards and honors for his work. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals and has also authored two mechanical engineering text books.
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Upcoming
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Throughout January, MIT hosts the Independent Activities Period where anyone from a janitor to a professor emeritus can teach a course. It is designed for the MIT community but, if they ask politely, members of the public can attend. The full schedule is available at
http://web.mit.edu/iap/
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Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Planet: Meet to network and discuss the solutions we need to be green & MAKE green!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
6:30 PM
Kingston Station, 25 Kingston St, Boston
http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurship-for-a-Sustainable-Planet/events/42665282/
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Sprouts/Microgreens class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE):
Monday, January 9, 6-9 pm
It will cover jar method of sprouting, tray methods of microgreens and flax/chia, and show some simple raw food recipes.
To register: contact CCAE at 617-547-6789 or via the web.
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The GovData Project Winter Course
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
1:00 PM
MIT Media Lab (new building), 75 Amherst St, Cambridge
Want to:
Help make US Government data open and transparent?
Learn how to organize and visualize massive datasets over the web?
Develop your Python, MongoDB, Solr, GeoDjango, Javascript, and HTML5 skills?
Join a team a high-impact open-source coding project?
Join us for the MIT-Harvard GovData Project Winter Course!
Open to the general data hacker community around Boston
RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/16288633/
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The Socialization and Gamification of Health Behavior Change Apps
January Meeting: Tuesday, January 10
Evening Schedule:
6:30-7 Networking & Socializing over Tea, Coffee, Drinks, Food; Joining BostonCHI
7-8:30 Meeting
8:30-9 Dessert! ... And more Networking & Socializing
IBM Center for Social Software, 1 Rogers Street, Cambridge
Chris Cartter, General Manager, MeYou Health - the social well-being company (http://www.meyouhealth.com/)
Please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2607816048 if you plan to attend. While not required, it helps us and our hosts estimate how much seating and refreshments to provide. All BostonCHI meetings are free and open to the public, although we'd appreciate it if you joined. Annual membership is only $15 / year and helps support our great speaker series.
Abstract: For decades, health behavior change programs have been fine tuned to guide participants through goal-driven, step-wise programs, highly tailored to the individual. Yet, even the best of these programs yield only modest participation, often heavily incentivized, hampering their ability to truly impact the public's health. Meanwhile, the dramatic rise of the social Internet and wildly successful online social games have transformed the landscape of what's possible. Facebook, with its 800 million users, creates an unprecedented social infrastructure developers can use to jump start a new generation of socially activated behavior change apps. Social network science can reveal patterns of social connection and influence, allowing us to create the first generation of health apps that engage not just an individual, but their real-world social network. User interaction patterns gleaned from successful games can be used to design realistic, genuine experiences that engage people in a personal journey towards well-being, not just a one-time interaction with an "intervention".
After the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to:
1. Discuss the importance of creating behavior change applications that leverage the real-world social networks of participants.
2. Explain how "game mechanics" can make the experience of using behavior change programs more fulfilling.
3. Envision a future where health programs are truly social and capable of engaging a mass audience in a collective journey towards greater health and well-being.
Bio: Chris Cartter has worked in the areas of networking technologies, health and social change for over 25 years. He is currently General Manager at MeYou Health (MYH), a social well-being company and Boston-based subsidiary of Healthways (Nasdaq: HWAY). Before starting MYH in 2009, Chris was Senior Vice President of Internet Innovation at Healthways. He came to Healthways in 2006 through the acquisition of QuitNet, an online smoking cessation company where he served as President & CEO from the time the program was spun out of Boston University (BU) in 2001. For eight years while at BU, Chris led the development of online services for Join Together, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded substance abuse resource center at the BU School of Public Health. Earlier in his career, Chris worked for two international NGO's, Oxfam America and Grassroots International, which he co-founded in 1983.
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Ignite Craft Boston 2: Craft, Community, and 5 Minute Presentations
Friday, January 13th
6:30pm to 9:30pm (doors open at 6:30 and presentations begin at 7:00pm)
32 Vassar Street, room 123, Cambridge, MA 02140
The event is free; however, due to limited space at the venue you must RSVP at http://ignitecraftboston2-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=17
Ignite Craft Boston 2 is an Ignite event with a crafty crowd. If you had five minutes on stage to talk about your crafty passion in Boston, what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world folks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
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What is MassChallenge? When can I apply?
January 17, 2012
12pm - 1pm
Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway, 14th Floor, Cambridge, MA
Please join us for an information session and lunch at Cambridge Innovation Center
Pizza and drinks on us
RSVP at http://mcinfosessioncic117-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=18
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions?
events@masschallenge.org
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Challenges facing renewable energy technologies in 2012: A panel-led discussion
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
6:00 PM
CIC - (Cambridge Innovation Center) - 5th floor - Havana Conference Room, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
Initial details to hold the date while we wait for final confirmation from panelists /speakers. This will be a lively group and panel discussion of the challenges facing renewable energies in 2012 - more details to follow as we get confirmations.
RSVP http://www.meetup.com/H2O-Boston-Water-and-Energy-Technology-Meetup/events/43917192/
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Coping with climate change today: Insights from the past
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7-8:45 pm
Cambridge Main Public Library, Community Room
By any measure, climate change is unprecedented. “The earth that we knew – the only earth that we ever knew – is gone.” (Bill McKibben, Eaarth, p. 27)
But the crisis of climate change, the human crisis, is an old one with many precedents that we can learn from as we confront climate change in our own lives.
If you are aware that climate change is real and is a looming threat to our way of life, the conditions that made human civilization possible, and possibly to human survival then you are confronted with the choice that defines the crisis:
Should I accept climate change as inevitable, and pursue my own happiness and profit as things fall apart, or should I join with others and fight it, even though we must live with the certainty that we can’t stop it? World War II confronted the French people with more immediate threats and similar choices. Shortly after the war, in 1947, Albert Camus, a Frenchman who had fought in the resistance, wrote a novel about life during the war and reached back to an earlier century for a precedent to the shock of the Nazi occupation of France. He found it in an outbreak of The Plague, which he set in a modern city in North Africa.
We have little living memory of the war that Camus had just experienced, yet his precise account of the timeless human condition in crises of the past can help us understand how to respond to today’s crisis.
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Opportunity
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Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says, "The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete@dcsenergy.com, with the address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their criteria."
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Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
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Resource
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
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The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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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 http://thesprouts.org/studios
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@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
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Energy (and Other) Events - December 11, 2011
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@world.std.com
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Vieques Dawn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjlkBqDXh4
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"Estimating and Predicting Climate Signals"
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:01p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)
Speaker: Greg Hakim (U-Washington)
Speaker website: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~hakim/
Host: Dan Chavas (drchavas@mit.edu)
Web site: http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/calendars/mass
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:
Dan Chavas
drchavas@mit.edu
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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES: Vernacular Construction Technology: Knowledge and Preservation
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, The Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas; Polytechnic University of Valencia
Building Technology Fall 2011 Lecture Series
Vernacular construction technology represents the most immediate, sustainable and functional answer to the needs of a dwelling using the available resources and materials. Its knowledge allows us to design the architecture of the future, being more rational and sensible to the environment. The preservation of traditional buildings requires innovative technology as well as respect for history. This lecture will present a series of recent design projects which investigate historical construction methods and their long-term preservation.
Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas are architects and professors at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). They have extensively published on traditional architectural technology and its preservation, and have won a number of international awards for their work.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Building Technology Program, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact:
Kathleen Ross
253-1876
kross@mit.edu
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Throwing the Baby Out With the Drinking Water: Unintended Consequences of Arsenic Mitigation Efforts in Bangladesh
WHEN Mon., Dec. 12, 2011, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
SPEAKER(S) Erika Field, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Science, Department of Economics, Harvard University
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MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 14e-109, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Terry Riley in a talk about his new work for gamelan (his first for that medium), commissioned by Galak Tika & MIT, to be premiered at Kresge on Dec 15. 5pm, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109. A Reception will follow. Free. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Tickets: NO TIX REQ.
Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
For more information, contact:
Clarise Snyder
mta-request@mit.edu
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash'
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, AVT, 77 Massachusetts Avenues, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
The Future of U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash': How Can Adversity Be Turned to Advantage?
Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Raphael Bostic, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Todd Sinai, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Tom Davidoff, University of British Columbia (not confirmed)
In the 20th-century, housing dominated "The American Dream" and was a driver of urban development and the consumer-led economy. In the past decade, housing led the great financial collapse. Now "Generation Y" may be looking for a new housing paradigm. The ramifications are fundamental and far-reaching???for the economy, the financial system, and the shape of our cities. How can we extricate ourselves from the current predicament? What reforms are needed? What is the future role of owning versus renting, of suburbs versus central cities, of single-family versus multi-family, and what is housing's role in the income disparities that are tearing at society? This panel invites discussion of several cutting-edge scholars and policy leaders dealing with housing markets in the U.S. today.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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2.009 Product Design Presentations
Monday, December 12, 2011
7:30p–10:00p
MIT, W-16, Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
MC: Professor David Wallace, MIT Mechanical Engineering
Presenters: 8 teams from 2.009, Product Engineering Processes
QA moderator: Professor Maria Yang, MIT Mechanical Engineering
At the beginning of the fall semester, the students of 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes) were tasked with proposing and developing innovative products focused around the theme "on-the-go."
You, the public, are invited to the alpha prototype launch event to hear about the teams' products, learn about the class, and weigh in on whether you think the products are a good idea.
Parking for the event is available in the West Garage after 5 p.m.
Presentations start at 7:30 p.m. sharp (please arrive early to pick up your name tag) in Kresge Auditorium, followed by a reception and chance to meet the students and try out their new products in the Kresge Auditorium lobby (around 10 p.m.).
Open to the general public, but please RSVP athttp://web.mit.edu/2.009/rsvp so that we can prepare a name tag for you. If the event is oversubscribed, people who have prepared name tags will be permitted to enter before everyone else.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/2.009/rsvp
Open to: the general public
Tickets: Please RSVP
Sponsor(s): Mechanical Engineering Dept.
For more information, contact:
Chevalley Duhart
617-253-3979
2009admin@mit.edu
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California Energy Commission Web Conference
December 13, 2011
11:00am
Online Conference
This web conference will examine findings from a recent research project funded by the California Energy Commission’s (CEC’s) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program on the advancement of rooftop unit (RTU) performance.
http://www.esource.com/ES-PR-PIER-12-11/Press_Release/PIER
Contact Name: Jenny Field jenny_field@esource.com
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The Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board Subcommittee on Shale Gas Production
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
11:30a–12:30p
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: John Deutch, Institute Professor
This talk will describe the tremendous potential benefits of shale gas and the environmental challenges posed by shale gas production. John Deutch will review the work of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Shale Gas Subcommittee, which he chaired, including the recommendations, the reasons for these recommendations, and the lessons to be learned from the experiences of this unusual advisory committee.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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Sustainable Civil Infrastructure in Hong Kong
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 1-131, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Scott T. Smith
CEE Mechanics Seminar
This presentation discusses activity in Hong Kong related to sustainable development of the built environment. The two parts of the lecture address the key related components of infrastructure, environment and energy from a practice as well as an education perspective. Part 1 is an overview of various Hong Kong Government initiatives for promoting sustainable development practices of the built environment. Also included are practices concerning tall buildings and construction materials. Part 2 is a summary of an entry level undergraduate engineering course developed at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) entitled Engineering for Sustainable Development. The education of future generations of engineers in sustainability is most topical and such teaching and learning activities are being implemented around the world and indeed in Hong Kong. An overview of selected teaching activities of relevance around the world will also be presented.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact:
Oral Buyukozturk
3-7186
obuyuk@MIT.EDU
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Please join American Farmland Trust for the second webinar in the series on Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach
On Tuesday, December 13 at 2 pm, AFT is offering an opportunity for people interested in local and regional food systems to learn about successful examples of county- and community-based food system planning. Presenters include Kathy Creahan of King County, Washington, Department of Natural Resources & Parks; Jason Grimm from Iowa Corridor Food and Agriculture Coalition; Katie Lynd of Multnomah County, Oregon, Office of Sustainability; and David Shabazian of Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Register for the webinar, Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach on the County or Community Level, at 2 pm on December 13 athttps://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/679320458
In case you missed our first webinar on state and regional food systems planning, visit farmland.org/systems-planning to access a video recording, copies of presentations, and links to download model plans from our presenters: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.
We hope you will join us to learn more about how to form strategic partnerships, conduct food system assessments, gather stakeholder input, and establish forward-thinking goals and steps for implementing them.
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Tailoring electrocatalyst materials at the nano-scale: Enhancing activity, selectivity, and stability for energy conversion reactions
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
4:15p–5:30p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Thomas F. Jaramillo, Stanford University
MITEI Seminar Series
A year-long series of seminars given by leaders in the energy field sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative.
Chemical transformations are ubiquitous in today's global-scale energy economy. The ability to catalyze chemical reactions efficiently will continue to be critically important as we aim to enable a future energy economy based on renewable, sustainable resources. This talk will focus on our efforts to develop catalytic materials for the low-temperature, electron-driven production and consumption of chemical fuels, reactions that could play key roles for future energy technologies. The reactions we seek to catalyze include: (1) H2 generation from water and (2) the synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons from CO2, and (3) the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), reducing O2 to H2O. Reactions (1) and (2) are relevant to the synthesis of chemical fuels from renewable resources (e.g. wind and solar), while reaction (3) is a major technical obstacle at the cathode in low-temperature fuel cells. Common catalyst materials for these reactions face challenges in terms of activity, selectivity, stability, and/or cost and earth-abundance. This talk will describe approaches used in our research group to understand the governing principles guiding the reaction chemistry, as well as strategies to tailor the surface chemistry of materials through control of morphology, stoichiometry, and surface structure at the nano- and atomic-scale in order to overcome performance barriers in catalyzing these reactions, particularly for low-cost, earth-abundant materials.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/seminars/jaramillo.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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10 in 1 StreetTalk: Ten Transportation Talks
Tuesday, December 13
6:00pm-9:00pm (note earlier start time)
70 Pacific St, Cambridge, MA (around the corner from our 100 Sidney St office)
$5-$15 suggested donation. Beverages provided.
Come hear 10 innovative transportation research and advocacy stories from students, advocates, consultants, planners and engineers from around the Boston area. Learn about transit equity and the Silver Line, youth empowerment through cycling, and a Broadway Bikeway and Urban Renewal proposal all in the same night.
Stories are from around the world, from Brookline to China, Massachusetts Avenue to Scotland, Virginia to Toronto. LivableStreets sent out a request for your transportation stories last month, and on December 13 you will hear 10 of them, each seven minutes long.
Seventy minutes of presentations with a social break in the middle, and time afterwards to chat, ask questions, network, and discuss. Don't miss out, it's the last event of the year!
Contact kara@livablestreets.info
617.621.1746
http://www.LivableStreets.info
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Designing Spaces for Civic Learning
December Meeting: Tuesday, December 13
IBM Center for Social Software, 1 Rogers Street, Cambridge
Evening Schedule:
6:30-7 Networking & Socializing over Tea, Coffee, Drinks, Food; Joining BostonCHI
7-8:30 Meeting
8:30-9 Dessert! ... And more Networking & Socializing
Eric Gordon, Associate Professor of Media Arts, Emerson College
Please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2450100316 if you plan to attend. While not required, it helps us and our hosts estimate how much seating and refreshments to provide. All BostonCHI meetings are free and open to the public, although we'd appreciate it if you joined. Annual membership is only $15 / year and helps support our great speaker series.
Abstract: Digital networks are changing how people expect to interact with one another and the world around them. From desktop browsing to location-aware social networks, for a growing amount of people, access to other people and information is fast, convenient, archivable and sharable. As people become accustomed to this, increasingly, they expect that those affordances be translated to their (offline) lives. Face-to-face engagement is influenced by expectations born of digital practices. For many, being local means having access to a global database of information and people. This presents a fascinating design challenge. Being local is not only defined by its limits. As such, when designers, scholars and community leaders seek to bring technologies to bear on local life, they need to consider how global networks and their corresponding practices are transforming what people want out of local connections.
This talk will explore several projects by the Engagement Game Lab, where traditional spaces of local engagement are augmented to incorporate more engaging and sustainable platforms for civic learning. I will talk specifically about how game dynamics and collaborative spaces can reframe the broader goals of civic life. I will discuss lessons from two recent projects: Participatory Chinatown (2010) and Community PlanIt (2011).
Bio: Eric Gordon's work focuses on location-based media, media and urbanism, and games for civic engagement. He is an associate professor in the department of visual and media arts at Emerson College and he is the director of the Engagement Game Lab http://engagementgamelab.org. His book, The Urban Spectator: American Concept Cities From Kodak to Google (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth, 2010) is about the intersections of media and American urbanism. He is also the co-author of a book about location aware media called Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World (Blackwell Publishing, 2011). In 2007, he co-founded the Hub2 http://hub2.org project, which explores how virtual environments can engage people in community planning by enabling meaningful and sustainable deliberation. He was awarded a MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Grant to continue with this work. The result is the game Participatory Chinatown http://participatorychinatown.org that launched in May 2010. His latest game project is called Community PlanIt http://communityplanit.org.
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Peace Walk
WHEN Wed., Dec. 14, 2011, 11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
WHERE Starts at John Harvard Statue
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Ethics, Humanities, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard/Cambridge Walk for Peace
CONTACT INFO janecollins1@gmail.com
NOTE Protest the waste of lives and dollars by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Urge that money be used instead to care for our troops' serious injuries, and to provide education, health care, and human services to the American public.
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Technovation Challenge Information Session
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Google Cambridge, 5 Cambridge Center in Cambridge, 3rd floor, Cambridge
Technovation Challenge is a program that brings together professional women in technology and high school girls to build innovative mobile phone applications and then pitch the business plans to a panel of venture capitalists. The program is run by Iridescent, a science education nonprofit.
The two-fold goals of the program are to:
• inspire high-school girls to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders and entrepreneurs
• provide product development experience to the women mentors so that they can go back and become leaders in the field. Women mentors get a powerful opportunity and access to senior tech leaders to take a project all the way from ideation to completion over 10 weeks. Here is a video from our "Stories of Leadership" event hosted by Andreessen Horowitz featuring Marissa Mayer (VP of Local, Google and Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco) talking about hard work vs luck to a group of Technovation women mentors.
Tara Chklovski, Founder and CEO of Iridescent will give a brief overview of the Technovation Challenge, entrepreneurship and the benefits of getting involved.
Lunch will be provided!
Register http://technovationchallengeinfo-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=13
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Google Info Session: Research at Google
Date: Wednesday, December 14 2011
Time: 3:00PM to 4:00PM
Refreshments: 3:00PM
Location: MIT, Building 32-G882 (Hewlett room), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Jon Orwant, Google Research
Abstract: Google is not a traditional company, and research at Google differs from both academia and typical corporate research labs. In this talk I'll explain our approach: how we choose what to do, and how we do it. I'll survey some of the major areas we're exploring, such as machine learning, natural language processing, machine translation, speech recognition, operations research, and machine vision.
Speaker bio: Jon Orwant is an Engineering Manager in Google Research and was at MIT for an embarrassingly long time, from undergrad (VI-3 and IX) through his PhD and returned briefly as a Lecturer in 2003. He recently worked on the Google Books Ngram Viewer and Google+ Ripples, and is the author or co-author of several books on programming, including the bestselling Programming Perl, and published an independent computer magazine. Before joining Google he was the CTO of O'Reilly Media and Director of Research for France Telecom.
Cookies, coffee and tea will be served.
Contact: Rachel Traughber, 617.324.8360, rptraughber@csail.mit.edu
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Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
4:15p–5:30p
MIT, Building 34-101, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Yergin, Charmain, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates
Daniel Yergin is a highly respected authority on energy, international politics, and economics. Dr. Yergin is a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the United States Energy Award for "lifelong achievements in energy and the promotion of international understanding." He is both a world-recognized author and a business leader, as Chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).
His new book -- The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World -- has been hailed by The Economist as "a masterly piece of work and "a comprehensive guide to the world's great energy needs and dilemmas" and, by the New York Times, as "searching, impartial and alarmingly up to date." The Financial Times called The Quest "a triumph".
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/seminars/yergin.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative, The Center for International Studies
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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MIT Environmental Research Forum
Thursday, December 15, 2011
9:00a–5:00p
MIT, Building 32-123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
In association with the Provost's Office, the MIT Environmental Research Council (ERC) is pleased to present this Forum for the greater MIT community as a showcase to complement the release of its report "Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative."
Speakers will include the Provost, members of the ERC and other faculty engaged in research with environmental applications. Ample opportunity for audience questions and comments will be provided, culminating with an hour of open discussion to end the day.
This event is free and open to the entire MIT community with no reservation required.
Coffee breaks and lunch will be provided.
Reception to follow.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/kurtster/www/forumagenda.pdf
Open to: The greater MIT Community
Cost: Free
Tickets: none required
Sponsor(s): Earth System Initiative, Environmental Research Council
For more information, contact:
Kurt Sternlof
3-6895
kurtster@mit.edu
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BU Pardee Distinguished Lecture: Who Controls the Future of Disease? Agroecology, Hydropower, and Malaria
Thursday, December 15, 2011
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Florence and Chafetz Hillel House, 213 Bay State Road, Boston University, Boston
Featuring Dr. William R. Jobin, Founder of Blue Nile Associates and an expert in the prevention and control of malaria and other tropical diseases. RSVP to pardee@bu.edu by Friday, December 9 to reserve a seat.
http://www.bu.edu/pardee/2011/11/21/william-r-jobin-distinguished-lecture/
Contact Name: Elaine Teng eyteng@bu.edu
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I "Heart" Neutrinos: A Film Screening by Jennifer West
Thursday, December 15, 2011
6:00p–7:30p
MIT, Building E15, Bartos Theatre, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Artist/filmmaker Jennifer West recently completed an artist residency project at MIT hosted by the List Visual Arts Center. West's collaborative engagement with faculty and researchers in MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering, X-Ray Shared Experimental Facility resulted in the creation of three new cameraless film works. These works serve as a portrait of MIT through the unique materials and laboratory processes used to create the films. West will screen the new works and discuss her residency experiences at MIT.
Web site: http://listart.mit.edu/node/913
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): List Visual Arts Center
For more information, contact:
Mark Linga
617-253-4680
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The Reporter’s Privilege: An Eternal Clash Between the First and Sixth Amendments
WHEN Thu., Dec. 15, 2011, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
WHERE RCC conference room, 26 Trowbridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Real Colegio Complutense
SPEAKER(S) Josep M. Altarriba
COST Free and open to public
CONTACT INFO rcc_info@harvard.edu
NOTE in English
LINK http://www.realcolegiocomplutense.harvard.edu
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Cultural Survival Bazaar
WHEN Fri., Dec. 16, 10 a.m. – Sun., Dec. 18, 2011, 7 p.m.
WHERE Shops at Prudential Center-Newbury Arcade
800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02199
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Cultural Survival Bazaar
COST Free
NOTE The Cultural Survival Bazaar is a festival of Native arts and culture from around the world, featuring Native artisans, performers, and handmade products benefiting the livelihoods of artisans, fair trade, and Cultural Survival's nonprofit work throughout the world.
The bazaars will be every weekend from Friday, Nov. 25, to Sunday Dec. 18, at four different locations (many offering free parking).
LINK http://bazaar.culturalsurvival.org
Editorial Comment: A regular reader asked that the Harvard Square Holiday Fair at the First Parish Church on Church Street in Harvard Square be included. It's a great showcase for local craftspeople with many great gift ideas for sale. More information at http://www.harvardsquareholidayfair.com/
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: Urban Ecology
Friday, December 16, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 3-133, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
Followed by reception in room 7-338 at 2:00pm.
Adrienne Greve, California Polytechnic State University; Marina Alberti, University of Washington; Alexander Felson, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies/Yale School of Architecture; Stephanie Hurley, University of Vermont
To be sustainable and resilient in the 21st century, cities will need to reduce their ecological footprint dramatically. Doing so entails transformative change in both urban form and residents' behavior. But major change has proven elusive; rather, incremental or marginal adjustments are the norm. How might we bring about genuine urban transformation? In this crosscutting panel, four prominent urban ecologists lead a conversation about how urban ecology can help make cities environmentally sustainable and resilient.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
------------------------------------
The Muddy Megawatt Hour
Friday, December 16, 2011
4:00p–6:00p
Location: 50-Muddy Charles Pub, 142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Starting this week we're bumping the start of the Muddy Megawatt Hour back to 4 pm and will have a new official Energy Club Muddy Megawatt Hour Flag marking our space. Don't miss this great weekly opportunity to chat with people from the other side of campus about what they are working on here at MIT. In the first month, we've had great discussions around the Solyndra scandal and DOE loan guarantees, startup company financing, this year's Energy Conference topics and opportunities for storage technologies to make an impact. Come see who you will meet and what part of the energy world you will learn more about while informing others about your work and interests. Come early, come late, stay as long as you can on the hallowed ground where the Energy Club started.
Open to: the general public
This event occurs on Fridays through October 7, 2012.
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact:
MIT Energy Club
energyclub@mit.edu
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Cambridge Public Library Main Branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
This forum we hope to bring together former Freedom Riders and other key orchestrators in the civil rights movement and those impacted by it, for a discussion with the public. 50 years since these courageous Americans took these Rides, are we doing enough to make a difference in our community, country or world?
Come join us.
http://freedomriderscambridgepanel.eventbrite.com/
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Upcoming
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Throughout January, MIT hosts the Independent Activities Period where anyone from a janitor to a professor emeritus can teach a course. It is designed for the MIT community but, if they ask politely, members of the public can attend. The full schedule is available at
http://web.mit.edu/iap/
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Sprouts/Microgreens class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE):
Monday, January 9, 6-9 pm
It will cover jar method of sprouting, tray methods of microgreens and flax/chia, and show some simple raw food recipes.
To register: contact CCAE at 617-547-6789 or via the web.
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Coping with climate change today: Insights from the past
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7-8:45 pm
Cambridge Main Public Library, Community Room
By any measure, climate change is unprecedented. “The earth that we knew – the only earth that we ever knew – is gone.” (Bill McKibben, Eaarth, p. 27)
But the crisis of climate change, the human crisis, is an old one with many precedents that we can learn from as we confront climate change in our own lives.
If you are aware that climate change is real and is a looming threat to our way of life, the conditions that made human civilization possible, and possibly to human survival then you are confronted with the choice that defines the crisis:
Should I accept climate change as inevitable, and pursue my own happiness and profit as things fall apart, or should I join with others and fight it, even though we must live with the certainty that we can’t stop it? World War II confronted the French people with more immediate threats and similar choices. Shortly after the war, in 1947, Albert Camus, a Frenchman who had fought in the resistance, wrote a novel about life during the war and reached back to an earlier century for a precedent to the shock of the Nazi occupation of France. He found it in an outbreak of The Plague, which he set in a modern city in North Africa.
We have little living memory of the war that Camus had just experienced, yet his precise account of the timeless human condition in crises of the past can help us understand how to respond to today’s crisis.
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Opportunity
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Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says, "The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete@dcsenergy.com, with the address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their criteria."
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Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
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Resource
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
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The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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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 http://thesprouts.org/studios
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@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
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com
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Vieques Dawn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjlkBqDXh4
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"Estimating and Predicting Climate Signals"
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:01p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)
Speaker: Greg Hakim (U-Washington)
Speaker website: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~hakim/
Host: Dan Chavas (drchavas@mit.edu)
Web site: http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/calendars/mass
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:
Dan Chavas
drchavas@mit.edu
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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES: Vernacular Construction Technology: Knowledge and Preservation
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, The Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas; Polytechnic University of Valencia
Building Technology Fall 2011 Lecture Series
Vernacular construction technology represents the most immediate, sustainable and functional answer to the needs of a dwelling using the available resources and materials. Its knowledge allows us to design the architecture of the future, being more rational and sensible to the environment. The preservation of traditional buildings requires innovative technology as well as respect for history. This lecture will present a series of recent design projects which investigate historical construction methods and their long-term preservation.
Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas are architects and professors at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). They have extensively published on traditional architectural technology and its preservation, and have won a number of international awards for their work.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Building Technology Program, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact:
Kathleen Ross
253-1876
kross@mit.edu
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Throwing the Baby Out With the Drinking Water: Unintended Consequences of Arsenic Mitigation Efforts in Bangladesh
WHEN Mon., Dec. 12, 2011, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
SPEAKER(S) Erika Field, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Science, Department of Economics, Harvard University
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MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 14e-109, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Terry Riley in a talk about his new work for gamelan (his first for that medium), commissioned by Galak Tika & MIT, to be premiered at Kresge on Dec 15. 5pm, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109. A Reception will follow. Free. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Tickets: NO TIX REQ.
Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
For more information, contact:
Clarise Snyder
mta-request@mit.edu
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash'
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, AVT, 77 Massachusetts Avenues, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
The Future of U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash': How Can Adversity Be Turned to Advantage?
Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Raphael Bostic, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Todd Sinai, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Tom Davidoff, University of British Columbia (not confirmed)
In the 20th-century, housing dominated "The American Dream" and was a driver of urban development and the consumer-led economy. In the past decade, housing led the great financial collapse. Now "Generation Y" may be looking for a new housing paradigm. The ramifications are fundamental and far-reaching???for the economy, the financial system, and the shape of our cities. How can we extricate ourselves from the current predicament? What reforms are needed? What is the future role of owning versus renting, of suburbs versus central cities, of single-family versus multi-family, and what is housing's role in the income disparities that are tearing at society? This panel invites discussion of several cutting-edge scholars and policy leaders dealing with housing markets in the U.S. today.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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2.009 Product Design Presentations
Monday, December 12, 2011
7:30p–10:00p
MIT, W-16, Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
MC: Professor David Wallace, MIT Mechanical Engineering
Presenters: 8 teams from 2.009, Product Engineering Processes
QA moderator: Professor Maria Yang, MIT Mechanical Engineering
At the beginning of the fall semester, the students of 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes) were tasked with proposing and developing innovative products focused around the theme "on-the-go."
You, the public, are invited to the alpha prototype launch event to hear about the teams' products, learn about the class, and weigh in on whether you think the products are a good idea.
Parking for the event is available in the West Garage after 5 p.m.
Presentations start at 7:30 p.m. sharp (please arrive early to pick up your name tag) in Kresge Auditorium, followed by a reception and chance to meet the students and try out their new products in the Kresge Auditorium lobby (around 10 p.m.).
Open to the general public, but please RSVP athttp://web.mit.edu/2.009/rsvp so that we can prepare a name tag for you. If the event is oversubscribed, people who have prepared name tags will be permitted to enter before everyone else.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/2.009/rsvp
Open to: the general public
Tickets: Please RSVP
Sponsor(s): Mechanical Engineering Dept.
For more information, contact:
Chevalley Duhart
617-253-3979
2009admin@mit.edu
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California Energy Commission Web Conference
December 13, 2011
11:00am
Online Conference
This web conference will examine findings from a recent research project funded by the California Energy Commission’s (CEC’s) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program on the advancement of rooftop unit (RTU) performance.
http://www.esource.com/ES-PR-PIER-12-11/Press_Release/PIER
Contact Name: Jenny Field jenny_field@esource.com
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The Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board Subcommittee on Shale Gas Production
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
11:30a–12:30p
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: John Deutch, Institute Professor
This talk will describe the tremendous potential benefits of shale gas and the environmental challenges posed by shale gas production. John Deutch will review the work of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Shale Gas Subcommittee, which he chaired, including the recommendations, the reasons for these recommendations, and the lessons to be learned from the experiences of this unusual advisory committee.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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Sustainable Civil Infrastructure in Hong Kong
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 1-131, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Scott T. Smith
CEE Mechanics Seminar
This presentation discusses activity in Hong Kong related to sustainable development of the built environment. The two parts of the lecture address the key related components of infrastructure, environment and energy from a practice as well as an education perspective. Part 1 is an overview of various Hong Kong Government initiatives for promoting sustainable development practices of the built environment. Also included are practices concerning tall buildings and construction materials. Part 2 is a summary of an entry level undergraduate engineering course developed at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) entitled Engineering for Sustainable Development. The education of future generations of engineers in sustainability is most topical and such teaching and learning activities are being implemented around the world and indeed in Hong Kong. An overview of selected teaching activities of relevance around the world will also be presented.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact:
Oral Buyukozturk
3-7186
obuyuk@MIT.EDU
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Please join American Farmland Trust for the second webinar in the series on Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach
On Tuesday, December 13 at 2 pm, AFT is offering an opportunity for people interested in local and regional food systems to learn about successful examples of county- and community-based food system planning. Presenters include Kathy Creahan of King County, Washington, Department of Natural Resources & Parks; Jason Grimm from Iowa Corridor Food and Agriculture Coalition; Katie Lynd of Multnomah County, Oregon, Office of Sustainability; and David Shabazian of Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Register for the webinar, Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach on the County or Community Level, at 2 pm on December 13 athttps://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/679320458
In case you missed our first webinar on state and regional food systems planning, visit farmland.org/systems-planning to access a video recording, copies of presentations, and links to download model plans from our presenters: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.
We hope you will join us to learn more about how to form strategic partnerships, conduct food system assessments, gather stakeholder input, and establish forward-thinking goals and steps for implementing them.
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Tailoring electrocatalyst materials at the nano-scale: Enhancing activity, selectivity, and stability for energy conversion reactions
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
4:15p–5:30p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Thomas F. Jaramillo, Stanford University
MITEI Seminar Series
A year-long series of seminars given by leaders in the energy field sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative.
Chemical transformations are ubiquitous in today's global-scale energy economy. The ability to catalyze chemical reactions efficiently will continue to be critically important as we aim to enable a future energy economy based on renewable, sustainable resources. This talk will focus on our efforts to develop catalytic materials for the low-temperature, electron-driven production and consumption of chemical fuels, reactions that could play key roles for future energy technologies. The reactions we seek to catalyze include: (1) H2 generation from water and (2) the synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons from CO2, and (3) the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), reducing O2 to H2O. Reactions (1) and (2) are relevant to the synthesis of chemical fuels from renewable resources (e.g. wind and solar), while reaction (3) is a major technical obstacle at the cathode in low-temperature fuel cells. Common catalyst materials for these reactions face challenges in terms of activity, selectivity, stability, and/or cost and earth-abundance. This talk will describe approaches used in our research group to understand the governing principles guiding the reaction chemistry, as well as strategies to tailor the surface chemistry of materials through control of morphology, stoichiometry, and surface structure at the nano- and atomic-scale in order to overcome performance barriers in catalyzing these reactions, particularly for low-cost, earth-abundant materials.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/seminars/jaramillo.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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10 in 1 StreetTalk: Ten Transportation Talks
Tuesday, December 13
6:00pm-9:00pm (note earlier start time)
70 Pacific St, Cambridge, MA (around the corner from our 100 Sidney St office)
$5-$15 suggested donation. Beverages provided.
Come hear 10 innovative transportation research and advocacy stories from students, advocates, consultants, planners and engineers from around the Boston area. Learn about transit equity and the Silver Line, youth empowerment through cycling, and a Broadway Bikeway and Urban Renewal proposal all in the same night.
Stories are from around the world, from Brookline to China, Massachusetts Avenue to Scotland, Virginia to Toronto. LivableStreets sent out a request for your transportation stories last month, and on December 13 you will hear 10 of them, each seven minutes long.
Seventy minutes of presentations with a social break in the middle, and time afterwards to chat, ask questions, network, and discuss. Don't miss out, it's the last event of the year!
Contact kara@livablestreets.info
617.621.1746
http://www.LivableStreets.info
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Designing Spaces for Civic Learning
December Meeting: Tuesday, December 13
IBM Center for Social Software, 1 Rogers Street, Cambridge
Evening Schedule:
6:30-7 Networking & Socializing over Tea, Coffee, Drinks, Food; Joining BostonCHI
7-8:30 Meeting
8:30-9 Dessert! ... And more Networking & Socializing
Eric Gordon, Associate Professor of Media Arts, Emerson College
Please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2450100316 if you plan to attend. While not required, it helps us and our hosts estimate how much seating and refreshments to provide. All BostonCHI meetings are free and open to the public, although we'd appreciate it if you joined. Annual membership is only $15 / year and helps support our great speaker series.
Abstract: Digital networks are changing how people expect to interact with one another and the world around them. From desktop browsing to location-aware social networks, for a growing amount of people, access to other people and information is fast, convenient, archivable and sharable. As people become accustomed to this, increasingly, they expect that those affordances be translated to their (offline) lives. Face-to-face engagement is influenced by expectations born of digital practices. For many, being local means having access to a global database of information and people. This presents a fascinating design challenge. Being local is not only defined by its limits. As such, when designers, scholars and community leaders seek to bring technologies to bear on local life, they need to consider how global networks and their corresponding practices are transforming what people want out of local connections.
This talk will explore several projects by the Engagement Game Lab, where traditional spaces of local engagement are augmented to incorporate more engaging and sustainable platforms for civic learning. I will talk specifically about how game dynamics and collaborative spaces can reframe the broader goals of civic life. I will discuss lessons from two recent projects: Participatory Chinatown (2010) and Community PlanIt (2011).
Bio: Eric Gordon's work focuses on location-based media, media and urbanism, and games for civic engagement. He is an associate professor in the department of visual and media arts at Emerson College and he is the director of the Engagement Game Lab http://engagementgamelab.org. His book, The Urban Spectator: American Concept Cities From Kodak to Google (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth, 2010) is about the intersections of media and American urbanism. He is also the co-author of a book about location aware media called Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World (Blackwell Publishing, 2011). In 2007, he co-founded the Hub2 http://hub2.org project, which explores how virtual environments can engage people in community planning by enabling meaningful and sustainable deliberation. He was awarded a MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Grant to continue with this work. The result is the game Participatory Chinatown http://participatorychinatown.org that launched in May 2010. His latest game project is called Community PlanIt http://communityplanit.org.
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Peace Walk
WHEN Wed., Dec. 14, 2011, 11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
WHERE Starts at John Harvard Statue
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Ethics, Humanities, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard/Cambridge Walk for Peace
CONTACT INFO janecollins1@gmail.com
NOTE Protest the waste of lives and dollars by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Urge that money be used instead to care for our troops' serious injuries, and to provide education, health care, and human services to the American public.
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Technovation Challenge Information Session
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Google Cambridge, 5 Cambridge Center in Cambridge, 3rd floor, Cambridge
Technovation Challenge is a program that brings together professional women in technology and high school girls to build innovative mobile phone applications and then pitch the business plans to a panel of venture capitalists. The program is run by Iridescent, a science education nonprofit.
The two-fold goals of the program are to:
• inspire high-school girls to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders and entrepreneurs
• provide product development experience to the women mentors so that they can go back and become leaders in the field. Women mentors get a powerful opportunity and access to senior tech leaders to take a project all the way from ideation to completion over 10 weeks. Here is a video from our "Stories of Leadership" event hosted by Andreessen Horowitz featuring Marissa Mayer (VP of Local, Google and Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco) talking about hard work vs luck to a group of Technovation women mentors.
Tara Chklovski, Founder and CEO of Iridescent will give a brief overview of the Technovation Challenge, entrepreneurship and the benefits of getting involved.
Lunch will be provided!
Register http://technovationchallengeinfo-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=13
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Google Info Session: Research at Google
Date: Wednesday, December 14 2011
Time: 3:00PM to 4:00PM
Refreshments: 3:00PM
Location: MIT, Building 32-G882 (Hewlett room), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Jon Orwant, Google Research
Abstract: Google is not a traditional company, and research at Google differs from both academia and typical corporate research labs. In this talk I'll explain our approach: how we choose what to do, and how we do it. I'll survey some of the major areas we're exploring, such as machine learning, natural language processing, machine translation, speech recognition, operations research, and machine vision.
Speaker bio: Jon Orwant is an Engineering Manager in Google Research and was at MIT for an embarrassingly long time, from undergrad (VI-3 and IX) through his PhD and returned briefly as a Lecturer in 2003. He recently worked on the Google Books Ngram Viewer and Google+ Ripples, and is the author or co-author of several books on programming, including the bestselling Programming Perl, and published an independent computer magazine. Before joining Google he was the CTO of O'Reilly Media and Director of Research for France Telecom.
Cookies, coffee and tea will be served.
Contact: Rachel Traughber, 617.324.8360, rptraughber@csail.mit.edu
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Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
4:15p–5:30p
MIT, Building 34-101, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Yergin, Charmain, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates
Daniel Yergin is a highly respected authority on energy, international politics, and economics. Dr. Yergin is a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the United States Energy Award for "lifelong achievements in energy and the promotion of international understanding." He is both a world-recognized author and a business leader, as Chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).
His new book -- The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World -- has been hailed by The Economist as "a masterly piece of work and "a comprehensive guide to the world's great energy needs and dilemmas" and, by the New York Times, as "searching, impartial and alarmingly up to date." The Financial Times called The Quest "a triumph".
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/seminars/yergin.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative, The Center for International Studies
For more information, contact:
Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu
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MIT Environmental Research Forum
Thursday, December 15, 2011
9:00a–5:00p
MIT, Building 32-123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
In association with the Provost's Office, the MIT Environmental Research Council (ERC) is pleased to present this Forum for the greater MIT community as a showcase to complement the release of its report "Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative."
Speakers will include the Provost, members of the ERC and other faculty engaged in research with environmental applications. Ample opportunity for audience questions and comments will be provided, culminating with an hour of open discussion to end the day.
This event is free and open to the entire MIT community with no reservation required.
Coffee breaks and lunch will be provided.
Reception to follow.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/kurtster/www/forumagenda.pdf
Open to: The greater MIT Community
Cost: Free
Tickets: none required
Sponsor(s): Earth System Initiative, Environmental Research Council
For more information, contact:
Kurt Sternlof
3-6895
kurtster@mit.edu
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BU Pardee Distinguished Lecture: Who Controls the Future of Disease? Agroecology, Hydropower, and Malaria
Thursday, December 15, 2011
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Florence and Chafetz Hillel House, 213 Bay State Road, Boston University, Boston
Featuring Dr. William R. Jobin, Founder of Blue Nile Associates and an expert in the prevention and control of malaria and other tropical diseases. RSVP to pardee@bu.edu by Friday, December 9 to reserve a seat.
http://www.bu.edu/pardee/2011/11/21/william-r-jobin-distinguished-lecture/
Contact Name: Elaine Teng eyteng@bu.edu
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I "Heart" Neutrinos: A Film Screening by Jennifer West
Thursday, December 15, 2011
6:00p–7:30p
MIT, Building E15, Bartos Theatre, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Artist/filmmaker Jennifer West recently completed an artist residency project at MIT hosted by the List Visual Arts Center. West's collaborative engagement with faculty and researchers in MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering, X-Ray Shared Experimental Facility resulted in the creation of three new cameraless film works. These works serve as a portrait of MIT through the unique materials and laboratory processes used to create the films. West will screen the new works and discuss her residency experiences at MIT.
Web site: http://listart.mit.edu/node/913
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): List Visual Arts Center
For more information, contact:
Mark Linga
617-253-4680
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The Reporter’s Privilege: An Eternal Clash Between the First and Sixth Amendments
WHEN Thu., Dec. 15, 2011, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
WHERE RCC conference room, 26 Trowbridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Real Colegio Complutense
SPEAKER(S) Josep M. Altarriba
COST Free and open to public
CONTACT INFO rcc_info@harvard.edu
NOTE in English
LINK http://www.realcolegiocomplutense.harvard.edu
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Cultural Survival Bazaar
WHEN Fri., Dec. 16, 10 a.m. – Sun., Dec. 18, 2011, 7 p.m.
WHERE Shops at Prudential Center-Newbury Arcade
800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02199
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Cultural Survival Bazaar
COST Free
NOTE The Cultural Survival Bazaar is a festival of Native arts and culture from around the world, featuring Native artisans, performers, and handmade products benefiting the livelihoods of artisans, fair trade, and Cultural Survival's nonprofit work throughout the world.
The bazaars will be every weekend from Friday, Nov. 25, to Sunday Dec. 18, at four different locations (many offering free parking).
LINK http://bazaar.culturalsurvival.org
Editorial Comment: A regular reader asked that the Harvard Square Holiday Fair at the First Parish Church on Church Street in Harvard Square be included. It's a great showcase for local craftspeople with many great gift ideas for sale. More information at http://www.harvardsquareholidayfair.com/
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: Urban Ecology
Friday, December 16, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 3-133, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
Followed by reception in room 7-338 at 2:00pm.
Adrienne Greve, California Polytechnic State University; Marina Alberti, University of Washington; Alexander Felson, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies/Yale School of Architecture; Stephanie Hurley, University of Vermont
To be sustainable and resilient in the 21st century, cities will need to reduce their ecological footprint dramatically. Doing so entails transformative change in both urban form and residents' behavior. But major change has proven elusive; rather, incremental or marginal adjustments are the norm. How might we bring about genuine urban transformation? In this crosscutting panel, four prominent urban ecologists lead a conversation about how urban ecology can help make cities environmentally sustainable and resilient.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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The Muddy Megawatt Hour
Friday, December 16, 2011
4:00p–6:00p
Location: 50-Muddy Charles Pub, 142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Starting this week we're bumping the start of the Muddy Megawatt Hour back to 4 pm and will have a new official Energy Club Muddy Megawatt Hour Flag marking our space. Don't miss this great weekly opportunity to chat with people from the other side of campus about what they are working on here at MIT. In the first month, we've had great discussions around the Solyndra scandal and DOE loan guarantees, startup company financing, this year's Energy Conference topics and opportunities for storage technologies to make an impact. Come see who you will meet and what part of the energy world you will learn more about while informing others about your work and interests. Come early, come late, stay as long as you can on the hallowed ground where the Energy Club started.
Open to: the general public
This event occurs on Fridays through October 7, 2012.
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact:
MIT Energy Club
energyclub@mit.edu
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Cambridge Public Library Main Branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
This forum we hope to bring together former Freedom Riders and other key orchestrators in the civil rights movement and those impacted by it, for a discussion with the public. 50 years since these courageous Americans took these Rides, are we doing enough to make a difference in our community, country or world?
Come join us.
http://freedomriderscambridgepanel.eventbrite.com/
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Upcoming
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Throughout January, MIT hosts the Independent Activities Period where anyone from a janitor to a professor emeritus can teach a course. It is designed for the MIT community but, if they ask politely, members of the public can attend. The full schedule is available at
http://web.mit.edu/iap/
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Sprouts/Microgreens class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE):
Monday, January 9, 6-9 pm
It will cover jar method of sprouting, tray methods of microgreens and flax/chia, and show some simple raw food recipes.
To register: contact CCAE at 617-547-6789 or via the web.
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Coping with climate change today: Insights from the past
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7-8:45 pm
Cambridge Main Public Library, Community Room
By any measure, climate change is unprecedented. “The earth that we knew – the only earth that we ever knew – is gone.” (Bill McKibben, Eaarth, p. 27)
But the crisis of climate change, the human crisis, is an old one with many precedents that we can learn from as we confront climate change in our own lives.
If you are aware that climate change is real and is a looming threat to our way of life, the conditions that made human civilization possible, and possibly to human survival then you are confronted with the choice that defines the crisis:
Should I accept climate change as inevitable, and pursue my own happiness and profit as things fall apart, or should I join with others and fight it, even though we must live with the certainty that we can’t stop it? World War II confronted the French people with more immediate threats and similar choices. Shortly after the war, in 1947, Albert Camus, a Frenchman who had fought in the resistance, wrote a novel about life during the war and reached back to an earlier century for a precedent to the shock of the Nazi occupation of France. He found it in an outbreak of The Plague, which he set in a modern city in North Africa.
We have little living memory of the war that Camus had just experienced, yet his precise account of the timeless human condition in crises of the past can help us understand how to respond to today’s crisis.
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Opportunity
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Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says, "The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete@dcsenergy.com, with the address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their criteria."
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Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
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Resource
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
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The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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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 http://thesprouts.org/studios
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@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
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Energy (and Other) Events - December 4, 2011
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@world.std.com
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I was away from computers all this past week, doing some serious relaxing with friends in a beautiful place. Regular writing should resume next week.
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MIT Future of Electric Grid: An Interdisciplinary Study
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:30 PM Eastern
Webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=83545
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"Investigating the Gulf Oil Spill: Challenges and Opportunities"
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Energy Technology Innovation Policy/ Consortium for Energy Policy Research
Energy Policy Seminar Series:
Speaker: Richard Lazarus, Harvard Law School
Lunch will be provided.
Contact Name: Louisa Lund, louisa_lund@hks.harvard.edu
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Interconnected Energy Grids - a Future for Electric Energy
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:30-1:45
Tufts, Cabot 108b, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
Aleksandar Stanković, Alvin H. Howell Professor in Electrical Engineering
The area of energy processing, which includes power electronics, electric drives and power systems, is at a crossroads. Its challenges are both external (contribution to climate change, nonfunctional markets) and internal (inability to integrate renewable sources and efficient loads). The promise of energy processing comes from a growing array of potentially transformative technologies that currently exist in energy components, power electronics, distributed sensing, and networked control. The first part of this talk will review available energy technologies, and outline salient features of the existing energy systems. The second part will outline desirable future developments in electric energy systems with an emphasis on interconnection of networks with different energy carriers.
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How to Organize a Resilience Circle: Live Discussion Webinar
Monday December 5
3pm EST for an interactive webinar about organizing a Resilience Circle!
Register here.
We’ll talk about how to start a group for your community, including:
finding an organizing partner
finding participants through "base communities" and the "linking method"
how to share the idea of a circle with others
some notes on the curriculum
You will receive a confirmation email after registering with information about how to join the webinar.
Before the webinar, please take 10 - 15 minutes to familiarize yourself with the Resilience Circle seven-session curriculum. Contact us (info@localcircles.org) for an electronic copy.
Register for the free webinar here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/638377470
Onward,
Sarah Byrnes
Find us on Facebook
Follow us @ResilienCircles
System Requirements:
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows(R) 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh(R)-based attendees
Required: Mac OS(R) X 10.4.11 (Tiger(R)) or newer
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The Dark Side: Reporting on the War on Terror
WHEN Mon., Dec. 5, 2011, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, room S-030
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Lecture, Social Sciences
SPEAKER(S) Roger Cohen, New York Times columnist and Shorenstein Fellow, and Carlotta Gall, reporter for The New York Times and Nieman Fellow
CONTACT INFO Donna Hicks: dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu
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Thermodynamic analysis of the deposited carbon on the anode of solid-oxide fuel cells
Monday, December 05, 2011
4:15p–5:15p
MIT, Building 1-242, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Won Yong Lee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.I.T.
Center for Energy and Propulsion Research - Reacting Gas Dynamics Seminar
SPEAKER BIO.
Won Yong Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. Won Yong's research focuses on modeling of SOFCs using hydrocarbon fuels. He completed his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT in 2006, receiving the Padmakar P. Lele student award for outstanding research and thesis. A Samsung Scholarship supports his graduate study at MIT. Prior to coming to MIT, Won Yong earned his B.S. degree from Seoul National University in 2001, and worked as an engineer at Hyundai Heavy Industries.
ABSTRACT
Fuel cells are well known for their clean power-generation capability. A significant amount of research is focused on the development of hydrocarbon-fueled fuel cells as an alternative to hydrogen-fuel ones. This eliminates the challenges of hydrogen storage and delivery and the need to first produce hydrogen from hydrocarbon sources. The most promising fuel cell for conversion of hydrocarbon fuels is a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC). However, SOFCs operating with hydrocarbon fuels and a conventional Ni/YSZ anode suffer from performance degradation due to carbon formation and deposition on anode surfaces caused by internal reforming and conversion of the hydrocarbon. Since a kinetic model for carbon deposition is not yet fully developed, the problem has been analyzed mostly from a thermodynamic standpoint. However, the ability to predict the likelihood and extent of carbon deposition from a thermodynamic analysis are not always successful because the deposited carbon is typically assumed to be bulk graphite regardless of the actual carbon structure. In this talk, I will discuss (1) three types of carbon-deposit structures and their formation/growth mechanisms, and (2) how to incorporate this knowledge into the thermodynamic analysis in order to improve predictions of carbon deposition.
Refreshments will be provided.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): RGD Lab
For more information, contact: Jeff Hanna
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The Fate of Civic Education in a Connected World: A "Fred Friendly" Seminar
Monday, December 5, 6:00 pm
Harvard, Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/12/civiceducation#RSVP
Featuring Professor Charles Nesson as Provocateur and Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (Bard College), Peter Levine (Tufts University), Harry Lewis (Harvard SEAS), Elizabeth Lynn (Project on Civic Reflection) and Juan Carlos de Martin (Berkman Center) as participants.
Civic education is the cultivation of knowledge and traits that sustain democratic self-governance. The broad agreement that civic education is important disintegrates under close scrutiny. As the social networks of individuals become less based on geography and more based on friendships and common interests, consensus on shared civic values seems harder to achieve. American education is under stress at every level, and schools and colleges must re-imagine their commitment to civic education. This seminar will probe tensions that make civic education difficult, for example:
What's the problem? Doesn't everyone agree that civic education is important? Is civic education being squeezed out in schools, either because of the demands of subject testing or the desire to avoid political controversy?
Does the connectedness of social media support or impair the sorts of connections that lead to active citizenship?
Every tertiary institution wants to be a "global university." What, if any, are the civic responsibilities of a global institution? What civic values are transnational? Should American students learn the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
What about civic education outside of school--for adults, prisoners, and the home-schooled, for example?
Then there was model UN; now there are online simulations. Do they achieve the same ends?
Does civic education include instruction in civic activism, using social media for example?
With connectedness come instantaneity and constant interruptions. Is it even possible to maintain anyone's attention on understanding anything as subtle as the complexities of representative government?
This lively, "Fred Friendly" style seminar is timed to coincide with publication of two edited volumes: Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education (David Feith, ed.; Rowman & Littlefield), and What is College For?: The Public Purpose of Higher Education (Ellen Condliffe Lagemann and Harry Lewis, eds.)
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Bioclimatic Devices and Adaptations at Alijares Palace (Alhambra, 14th century) and other Nasrid Buildings
Monday, December 05, 2011
6:00p–7:30p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
AKPIA@MIT LECTURE
Speaker: Luis Jose Garcia Pulido, Post-Doctoral Fellow, AKPIA@MIT
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/akpia/www/lecturescurrent.htm
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture
For more information, contact:
Jose Luis Arguello
253-1400
akpiarch@mit.edu
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Elijah Wald Presents the History & Early Blues' Traditions
Monday, December 05, 2011
7:30p–9:00p
MIT, Building 4-231, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Elijah Wald
Bluesologist and author Elijah Wald presents the history and early traditions of the blues.
Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): Literature Section
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CReM Seminar Series: "Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cells, Where Is This All Taking Us" with Juan Enriquez
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2011
9:00am until 10:00am
Evans Biomedical Research Center, X Building, 650 Albany Street (X715), Boston
Speaker(s): Juan Enriquez
Juan Enriquez is a leading authority on the economic impact of life sciences on business and society and is a respected business leader and entrepreneur. He is a Managing Director at Excel Medical Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm. Prior to Excel, Juan was the founding Director of the Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project, and then founder of Biotechonomy which invested in BioTrove, Xcellerex, and Synthetic Genomics, a company he co founded with Drs. J. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith to apply life sciences to energy markets.
The Harvard Business Review showcased his ideas as one of the breakthrough concepts in its first HBR List. Fortune profiled him as Mr. Gene. Time asked him to co-organize the life sciences summit commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of DNA. Seed picked his ideas as one of fifty that "shaped our identity, our culture, and the world as we know it."
In addition, he is well known for giving a number of the popular TED talks, highlighting the future of biotechnology and the profound changes that advances in life sciences will have in business, politics, and society. He is the author of As The Future Catches You, which provided an accurate blueprint of how a bio-based economy changes industries and corporations, and The Untied States of America, which looks at the forces threatening America's future as a unified country. His latest publication is an eBook, Homo Evolutis: A Short Tour of our New Species, which describes a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, themselves, and other species. He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A., both with honors.
Watch Juan's TED talks at: http://www.ted.com/speakers/juan_enriquez.html
Open to General Public
Admission is free
More Info http://www.ted.com/speakers/juan_enriquez.html
Contact: Pulmonary Center
Amulya Iyer
amiyer@bu.edu
617-638-4466
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Congress is considering several bills that would censor the Internet and emulate China by creating a Great Firewall of the US.
*Join us on Dec. 6th to tell the Congress: Don?t Censor the Internet!*
Noon, Tuesday, December 6th.
JFK Federal Building, Cambridge St. entrance
Next to Boston City Hall Plaza
We will bring our fight against the censoring the Internet directly to Senator Brown?s Boston office on Tuesday, December 6th. We will meet at noon in front of the JFK Federal Building near the Cambridge St. entrance next to Boston City Hall Plaza. Please join us in telling Senator Brown and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation that they must oppose efforts to censor the Internet.
*NOTE: *Check http://www.masspirates.org/blog/dontcensorthenet/ for updated information on this rally and efforts to stop Congress from censoring the net.
*Posters*
*Why we oppose censoring the Internet*
Our Information Packet for Senators Regarding PIPA and CFSA
is available. We hope you will find it a useful reference when considering the implications of these harmful bills.
This rally is being organized by the Massachusetts Pirate Party.
Editorial Comment: This is an important issue and the comparison to China's Great Firewall to this legislation is not an exaggeration but confirmed by Rebecca McKinnon, former CNN China correspondent and co-founder of Global Voices Online (http://globalvoicesonline.net), a great resource to learn about the news of the world from people living in the countries they write about. I also find it interesting that there is a MA Pirate Party, a name and idea that is spreading internationally.
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Urban Citizenship and Community-Based Conservation in Indonesia
WHEN Tue., Dec. 6, 2011, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100-North, Room 106
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Trisiawati Bantacut: trisiawati_bantacut@hks.harvard.edu, 617.384.8156
NOTE Please join us as two Harvard student recipients of HKS Indonesia Program travel research grants present their work. Jaclyn Sachs, candidate for master’s degree in urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, will discuss the interplay between conceptions of urban citizenship and land contestation struggles in Indonesia. Sachi Oshima, bachelor’s degree candidate at Harvard College, will share her internship experience at Project ASRI in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Indonesia Research Fellow Inka Yusgiantoro will serve as a moderator. Offered every January-term and during the summer, HKS Indonesia student research grants encourages students from across Harvard University to apply their analytical skills to challenges in Indonesia through both internship as well as independent research projects.
-----------------------
Electricity Market Design and the Green Agenda
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
12:15p–1:30p
MIT, Building 4-145, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. William W. Hogan
Energy & Environment Community Lecture/Discussion Series
Prof. William W. Hogan from Harvard Kennedy School will join us to discuss electricity sector's role in addressing climate change through improved efficiency, development of renewable energy, and use of low-carbon fuels--which creates expanded demands for and of electricity restructuring.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club, Energy & Environment Community
For more information, contact:
MIT Energy Club
energy-environment@mit.edu
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Optimal Information Revelation
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
2:30p–4:00p
MIT, Building E62-550, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Anton Kolotilin (MIT)
Web site: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/oe-seminar/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT/Sloan Seminar in Organizational Economics
For more information, contact: Theresa Benevento
theresa@mit.edu
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Engineering the Microstructural Architecture of New Materials Using Freedom and Constraint Topologies
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
3:00p–4:00p
MIT, Building 3-270, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Jonathan Hopkins, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The ability to design and fabricate microstructural architecture enables the creation of new materials that possess radically superior properties from those currently achieved by composites, alloys, and other naturally occurring materials. The Freedom and Constraint Topologies (FACT) synthesis approach has been successfully applied to the design and optimization of such new materials (e.g., materials with large negative Poisson's ratios and zero/negative thermal expansion coefficients). The basis for FACT is a comprehensive library of geometric shapes that represent the mathematics of screw theory and enable designers to visualize all the regions wherein various microstructural elements may be placed for achieving desired bulk material properties. In this way, designers may rapidly consider and compare every microstructural concept that best satisfies the design requirements before selecting the final concept.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MechE Seminar Series
For more information, contact:
Ian Hunter
617-253-3921
ihunter@mit.edu
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"IN THE DOCK: Lawrence Lessig Interrogates Jack Abramoff about Corruption"
WHEN Tue., Dec. 6, 2011, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Ames Courtroom (Austin Hall 200), Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Law, Lecture, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
SPEAKER(S) Jack Abramoff and Professor Lawrence Lessig
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO ethics@harvard.edu
NOTE Seating is limited. Overflow seating will be available.
The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics has had a long list of great souls offering their insight about ethics, philosophy, and the question of institutional corruption. With this event, we launch an occasional series drawing on people from the other side of that ethical line. The "In the Dock" series will, when appropriate and edifying, interview the guilty, not the innocent or inspirational. In this first of the series, Professor Lessig will interview Jack Abramoff about corruption and the nature of lobbying. We hope you will join us.
LINK http://ethics.harvard.edu/news-and-events/in-the-dock
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Join Boston Climate Action Network this Wednesday Evening to Plan the Future of the Climate Movement
Dimensions of Resilience: A Potluck and Discussion
Tuesday, December 6
6-9 pm
at the Nate Smith House, 155 Lamartine Street, Jamaica Plain
All are welcome to join this potluck and talk, featuring local activists working on the artistic, food, spiritual, and equity dimensions of Community Resilience. We'll hear from:
Andi Sutton, a JP performance artist - on the artistic dimensions
Jim Bukle, farmer at Allandale Farm - on the food sustainability dimensions
Lilli Nye, minister at West Roxbury UU church - on the spiritual dimensions
Juan Gonzalez, community organizer at JP NDC - on the social justice and equity dimensionsYouth Ambassadors from Bikes Not Bombs, to talk with us about their work creating an after school bike shop at Boys and Girls Clubs.
Q&A will be followed by break out groups on a variety of issues.
Please bring a dish to share for the meal.
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CSE Fraunhofer AR Project Introduction
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 56-114, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Kokonowski
Dan recently joined Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy to head the development and implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) in coordination with the Building Technology Showcase (BTS).
The BTS is Fraunhofer CSE's plan to retrofit a historic building in South Boston's Innovation District, transforming it into a living laboratory and test bed for the latest technologies in sustainable energy systems. The BTS will also include an Interactive Lobby Showcase.
With the design and layout headed by Daniel, the showcase will deploy the use of the latest Audio/Visual technologies developed by Fraunhofer and industry partners. This is including, but not limited to; interactive hand gesturing displays, facial recognition software, 3-D televisions, and potentially bidirectional OLED microdisplays.
Web site: http://mit.edu/e-club/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Entrepreneurs Club
For more information, contact:
MIT Solar Decathlon
SolarDecathlon@mit.edu
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“Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST): What role does scientific information on ecosystem services play in decision-making?”
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
12:00pm - 1:30pm
124 Mt Auburn Street, Suite 160, Room 105, Cambridge
Emily McKenzie, Natural Capital Project
Lunch will be served, please RSVP here: http://bit.ly/sxkAaR to ensure enough food is ordered.
Presentation summary: InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs) is a suite of models developed by the Natural Capital Project that provides information on where ecosystem services are provided and how they will be affected by alternative plans and policies. InVEST is designed to help local, regional and national decision-makers incorporate ecosystem services into processes such as spatial planning, strategic environmental assessments and payments for ecosystem services. Based on experiences applying InVEST around the world, the Natural Capital Project is beginning to assess if, how and when decisions are transformed by access to scientific information on ecosystem services.
Emily McKenzie leads the science-policy interface work of the Natural Capital Project (NatCap), and manages NatCap’s work at WWF. Her focus is on enabling scientific information on ecosystem services to be effectively incorporated into institutions, policies and decisions. Emily’s research interests include environmental valuation, and policies and payments for ecosystem services. She has applied environmental economics to policy questions in sixteen countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, Caribbean and Europe. Her research has helped to ensure nature’s benefits to people are considered in decisions around land use planning in Indonesia, black pearl farming in the Cook Islands, aggregates extraction in the Marshall Islands and forest biodiversity in Montserrat. She has built several environmental economics programs - leading research, developing tools, building capacity and providing technical and policy advice. She previously worked as Environmental Economics Advisor to the UK government, based at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. In 2003-2005, she was awarded an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship as the Resource Economist at the Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji. Emily received a Masters Degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
Contact:
Lauren Bloomberg
lauren_bloomberg@hks.harvard.edu
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The Occupy Movement and Student Debt Refusal
WHEN Wed., Dec. 7, 2011, 4:15 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Room S050, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics
SPEAKER(S) Andrew Ross, professor of social and cultural analysis, NYU
CONTACT INFO jbarnard@wcfia.harvard.edu, 617.495.8923
LINK http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/jwe/
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COMPUTATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL PHENOMENA IN ON-LINE NETWORKS
12/7/2011
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142
Description: With an increasing amount of social interaction taking place in the digital domain, and often in public on-line settings, we are accumulating enormous amounts of data about phenomena that were once essentially invisible to us: the collective behavior and social interactions of hundreds of millions of people, recorded at unprecedented levels of scale and resolution. Analyzing this data computationally offers new insights into the design of on-line applications, as well as a new perspective on fundamental questions in the social sciences. We discuss how this perspective can be applied to questions involving network structure and the dynamics of interaction among individuals, with a particular focus on the ways in which evaluation, opinion, and in some cases polarization manifest themselves at large scales in the on-line domain Biography Jon Kleinberg is the Tisch University Professor in the Computer Science Department at Cornell University. His research focuses on issues at the interface of networks and information, with an emphasis on the social and information networks that underpin the Web and other on-line media. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation, and the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council. He is the recipient of MacArthur, Packard, and Sloan Foundation Fellowships, as well as awards including the Nevanlinna Prize from the International Mathematical Union and the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences
--------------------------------------
Reinventing the City @ MIT: A Planet of Civic Laboratories: The Future of Cities, Information and Inclusion
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Anthony Townsend, Research Director, Institute for the Future
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
How are tools like smart phone apps and mobile communications changing the way people experience and interact with the built environment? How will new forms of visualization and simulation inform the planning process? What new skills will urban designers need to integrate ubiquitous technologies into mediated public spaces, and how can we re-interpret key planning tenets - such as the ideas of Lynch, Jacobs and Alexander - in a world of ubiquitous information technology?
Lecture at 5:30, with reception following.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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HTC Forum: The Body as Archive/ The Archive as Body: Live Art in Los Angeles 1970-75, A Case Study
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
6:30p–8:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Amelia Jones
HTC Forum: After the fact
The re-presentation of ephemeral or fragile works of art and architecture raises vital questions regarding ideas of originality, authenticity, authority, and temporality. Whether reconstructed, repurposed, or reenacted, these works establish new meanings in relation to their new spatial, social, and temporal contexts while maintaining vestigial but unimpeachable reference to their previous histories. This semester's HTC Forum invites artists, historians, and curators who critically engage re-presentation, to surface the issues that it poses for the production and presentation of history.
Amelia Jones is Professor and Grierson Chair in Visual Culture in the Department of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University. She practices a queer, anti-racist, feminist history and theory of twentieth- and twenty-first century Euro-American visual arts, including performance, film, video, and installation. Dr. Jones is the author of numerous books, including: Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification in the Visual Arts (2012) and Perform Repeat Record: Live Art in History (co-edited with Adrian Heathfield, 2012). Self/Image: Technology, Representation, and the Contemporary Subject (2006), Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada (2004), and Body Art/Performing the Subject (1998). She has published several articles on the subject of presence and live art, most recently including "'The Artist is Present': Artistic Re-enactments and the Impossibility of Presence," in the Spring 2011 volume of The Drama Review. Dr. Jones has also curated such landmark exhibitions as "Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History," held at UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum of Art in 1996.
Web site: http://htc.scripts.mit.edu/wordpress/?page_id=1305
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Architecture, History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art
For more information, contact:
258-8439/8
htc@mit.edu
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ENCUENTRO5 TURNS 5! COMMEMORATIVE DINNER: Celebrating 5 solid years and 5 inspiring honorees!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
7:00 pm
Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor, Chinatown T, Boston
As a dynamic movement-building space, encuentro 5 has balanced the day-to-dayneeds of grassroots organizations and community groups with the wide-ranging
social change goals that their organizers embrace for 5 solid years ofsolidarity and inspiration.
For e5, challenging the militarism and corporate globalization that institutionalize the current moment of capitalism and white supremacy has meant offering a space for the spontaneous needs of local groups, housing over a dozen resident organizations, offering offices for new projects and small NGOs, archiving the efforts of social movements, providing cross-movement institutional memory, resourcing emerging projects with much needed research, materials and equipment, and ongoing daily efforts of networking and support.
Although it has meant a lot of intense work, it has also been greatly inspiring to connect with creative activists, engaging writers, soulful musicians and dedicated community members. Together, we have made e5 a platform for major demonstrations, thoughtful debates, heartwarming performances, and strategic conversations as a review of the e5 website reveals.
Always thriving on the insights and energy of countless groups and individuals, we chose five exemplary honorees who have contributed directly to e5's programming and/or inspired the work we do. To honor them and to launch the e5 movement-builders sustainer program, e5 is hosting its first annual,
Commemorative Dinner, at 7pm Wednesday, December 7, 2012.
The five honorees are:
Sergio Reyes, a Chilean-born revolutionary. musician, and founder of the Boston May Day Committee and a founder of Latin@s for Social Change
Avi Chomsky, a scholar and activist whose work connects people across borders
Paul Shannon, a peace movement veteran active in United for Justice with Peace and a founder of the Majority Agenda Project who has been on staff at the
American Friends Service Committee for over 30 years.
Robin Jacks, a long-time activist challenging low-wage work in the South and a founder of the #OccupyBoston effort
Dorotea Manuela, a founder of the Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, a member of the Downtown Workers Center collective, and an active defender of
Puerto Rican sovereignty.
On December 7th, join us to honor these 5 outstanding movement builders, to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of the e5 Residents and the expansive social justice community, and to make e5 a sustainable effort for 2012! RSVP at http://encuentro5.org/home/node/234
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Promoting Safety, Protecting the Environment and Conserving Offshore Resources Through Vigorous Regulatory Oversight and Enforcement
WHEN Thu., Dec. 8, 2011, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Science, Social Sciences, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government
SPEAKER(S) Michael R. Bromwich, director, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, US Department of Interior
CONTACT INFO Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to mrcbg@ksg.harvard.edu
---------------------------------
How Social Networks Shape Human Behavior...and Vice Versa
December 8, 2011
2:50 pm - 4:00 pm
Tufts, Halligan 111A, 161 College Avenue, Medford
Speaker: Alex (Sandy) Pentland, MIT Media Lab
Host: Soha Hassoun
Abstract: Increased productivity and creative output lie in understanding how social networks - face-to-face and digital - shape the behavior both of employees and customers. By use of the `big data' collected by my research group's unique `reality mining' sensor platforms, we can measure the behavior of hundreds of people in great detail and over long periods of time, and build mathematical models that provide accurate predictions of human decision making performance across a wide range of scales...team, organization, and even city. We can also use these models to more effectively shape social behaviors, as illustrated by our win of DARPA's 40th Anniversary of the Internet Grand Challenge. As a consequence of these new capabilities personal data is becoming ever more valuable, and also more dangerous. To address this concern I will describe my work with the World Economic Forum that has lead to the emergence of a new personal data framework.
Bio: Alex `Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, and advises the World Economic Forum, Nissan Motor Corporation, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT’s Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital’s Center for Future Health.
Sandy is one of the world's most-cited computer scientists, and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, mobile computing, image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has recently been featured in Nature, Science, the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review, and the popular press.
-------------------------------
Harvard Thinks Green
WHEN Thu., Dec. 8, 2011, 5 – 6:30 p.m.
WHERE Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Health Sciences, Humanities, Law, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Office for Sustainability, Harvard Thinks Big, Harvard University Center for the Environment
SPEAKER(S)
Eric Chivian, HMS
Rebecca Henderson, HBS
Rob Kaplan, HBS
Richard Lazarus, HLS
James McCarthy, FAS
Christoph Reinhart, GSD
CONTACT INFO jennifer_stacy@harvard.edu
NOTE 6 all-star environmental faculty, 6 big green ideas, 10 minutes each
LINK http://green.harvard.edu/thinksgreen
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Root Cause's Social Innovation Forum presents: Celebrating Innovation: A Winter Reception
Thursday, December 8, 2011
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142
Please join Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum for cocktails and hors d'oeuvre as we welcome our 2012 Social Innovators and celebrate the 2011 Innovators' achievements
The evening will feature the formal announcement of the 2012 Social Innovators and the presentation of the 6th Annual Margaret Stewart Lindsay Inspiration Award to Lindsay Hyde, President and Founder of Strong Women, Strong Girls, a 2007 Social Innovator. The award is sponsored by the Margaret Stewart Lindsay Foundation.
Help us congratulate our 2011 Social Innovators...
Future Chefs
Fiscal Health Vital Signs, a program of DotWell
Massachusetts Senior Action Council
MathPOWER
Smart from the Start
...and be the first to meet our 2012 Social Innovators, one for each of the following social issue tracks:
At-Risk Children and Youth in MetroWest: Providing Adult Guidance and Support
Sponsoring Partner: The Sudbury Foundation
Food, Nutrition, and Fitness: Promoting Healthy Living for Children, Youth, and Families
Sponsoring Partner: The Trefler Foundation
Healthy Aging: Engaging and Supporting Older Adults in their Communities
Sponsoring Partner: Tufts Health Plan Foundation
Impact Investing: Scaling Social Enterprise
Sponsoring Partner: The Devonshire Foundation
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education and Enrichment for Children and Youth
Sponsoring Partners: Amelia Peabody Foundation and Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
Workforce Development: Skills and Support for Workers in Today’s Economy
Sponsoring Partner: Highland Street Foundation
---------------------------------
Reinventing the City @ MIT: Building resilience in in low- and middle-income nations: Challenges for city governments
Thursday, December 08, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 3-370, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow, Human Settlements Group, Home International Institute for Environment and Development
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
Most of the measures needed to build resilience to climate change for urban populations fall to city and municipal governments -- a difficult challenge when many are struggling to provide basic infrastructure and services, and most have shown themselves to be unable or unwilling to act to reduce disaster risks that are already known. In the face of these difficulties, how can planners concerned with climate change be most effective?
David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Editor of the international journal Environment and Urbanization. A development planner by training with a Doctorate in social policy, he has long had an interest in the power and capacity of grassroots organizations formed by residents of informal settlements; this was the focus of a book written with Jorge Hardoy in 1989 entitled Squatter Citizen. More recent books published by Earthscan include: The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Cities (editor), 1999; Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World (with Jorge Hardoy and Diana Mitlin), 2001; Empowering Squatter Citizen (co-editor with Diana Mitlin), 2004 and Adapting Cities to Climate Change (co-editor with Jane Bicknell and David Dodman), 2009.
Lecture at 5:30, followed by reception in 9-450.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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An Evening Celebrating the Legacy of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS)
Thursday, December 08, 2011
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building E15-001, MIT Cube, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
PROGRAM
Lecture: Marton Orosz, Curator and Gyorgy Kepes Fellow for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture and Technology
Screening: Centerbeam, Directed by Richard Leacock and Jon Rubin. CAVS 1978, 16 mm, color, 13 min.
Round table discussion:
Otto Piene, Professor and CAVS Director Emeritus
Elizabeth Goldring, former CAVS Co-Director and ACT Fellow
Joan Brigham, former CAVS Fellow
Lowry Burgess, former CAVS Fellow
Alejandro Sina, former CAVS Fellow
Aldo Tambellini, former CAVS Fellow
Moderated by Joao Ribas, Curator, List Visual Arts Center
The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture and Technology is a joint initiative of the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), tranzit.org and ERSTE Foundation. The preservation of Centerbeam is supported in part by the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation.
Web site: http://visualarts.mit.edu/about/events.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to the public.
Tickets: http://visionsandprojections.eventbrite.com/
Sponsor(s): MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology
For more information, contact:
Laura Anca Chichisan Pallone
617-253-5229
act@mit.edu
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MIT Clean Energy Prize Info Session & Networking Opportunity
Thursday, December 8, 2011
6:30pm
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin 119, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Want to shape our energy future through entrepreneurship? Interested in winning $200,000?
Come learn about the MIT CLEAN ENERGY PRIZE
The MIT Clean Energy Prize is a multi-stage, student-organized business plan competition. The top twenty-one teams receive professional, legal and industry mentors, and three finalists are awarded $20,000. The competition culminates with a $200,000 Grand Prize winner in April 2012.
Info Session and Networking Opportunity
(Meet potential teammates!)
Pizza will be provided!
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dExHcTZSQl9BbUxUOVRPM2pxOTNRQ1E6MQ
http://cep.mit.edu/
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An Update on Deep Energy Retrofits for Buildings - the Intersection of Human-Based and Energy Efficient Design
Thursday, December 08 2011
7:00pm reception, program begins at 7:30 pm
1st Parish Unitarian Church, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge
BOSTON AREA SOLAR ENERGY ASSOCIATION Forum
Speakers: Henry MacLean (Timeless Architecture) & Friends
Contact : http://www.basea.org/
The BASEA forums are held September through May, the second Thursday of each month, except as noted. The forums are free and open to the public.
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Renewable Energy-Related Transmission for New Englanders: By Land and By Sea
Friday, December 9, 2011
9:00 am to 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 13th Floor, Boston
New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable
We welcome two new speakers to our December 9 Roundtable: Associate Deputy Minister for Energy, Mario Gosselin, Québec Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, and Deepwater Wind CEO, William Moore.
Our 126th New England Electric Restructuring Roundtable focuses on renewable energy-related transmission for New Englanders - both by land and by sea. Utility-scale wind, hydro, and even solar must be sited in proximity to the resource, which is often far from population centers, thus necessitating the building of new transmission lines. The siting, cost, and cost allocation related to these lines is often no less (and sometimes more) controversial than the renewable energy resources they are built to transmit. And the promise of off-shore wind development on the East Coast presents a bevy of additional new technical and other challenges. At this Roundtable, we will explore numerous, very current, renewable energy-related transmission studies and proposed projects.
Our first panel focuses primarily on land-based renewable energy-related transmission. Starting off the panel is Associate Deputy Minister for Energy, Mario Gosselin, from Québec's Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, who will discuss Québec's current and planned renewable energy resources that could be exported to the Northeast. David Whiteley , Executive Director for the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC) then discusses the collaborative scenario planning analysis currently underway on transmission and renewables for the entire Eastern Interconnect (comprising 24 RTOs and over 40 states). Next, First Wind Executive VP/CDO, Kurt Adams, provides a wind developer's perspective on transmission, including potential transmission projects in Maine. David H. Boguslawski, VP for Transmission Strategy/Operations atNortheast Utilities rounds out the panel with a presentation on a transmission owner's perspective on connecting New England wind to the grid and NU/NSTAR's proposed Northern Pass Transmission Project to bring approximately 1,200 MW of mainly hydro power from Québec to New England through New Hampshire.
Our second panel brings together three CEO's to discuss sea-based renewable energy-related transmission. Robert Mitchell, CEO ofAtlantic Wind Connection kicks off the panel with a discussion of Atlantic Wind's proposal to construct a transmission line 20 miles off-shore, between New Jersey and Virginia, to facilitate off-shore wind development (aka Google Line) Edward Krapels, CEO pf Anbaric Transmission, then discusses Anbaric's just- announced (11/14) Bay State Offshore Wind Transmission System, to be located 25 miles off-shore in Massachusetts, to carry up to 2,000 MW of off-shore wind to the NE Grid. Deepwater Wind CEO William Moore rounds out the panel by discussing the Deepwater Wind Energy Center proposal to build 1,000 MW of off-shore wind off the Rhode Island coast, with transmission to both New England and Long Island.
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Architecture Lecture Series - Design and Computation
Friday, December 09, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Ayodh Kamath
Title: Craft and the Computer: Theory and Practice
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Computation Group Events
For more information, contact:
Daniela Stoudenkova
danielas@mit.edu
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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES: Vernacular Construction Technology: Knowledge and Preservation
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, The Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas; Polytechnic University of Valencia
Building Technology Fall 2011 Lecture Series
Vernacular construction technology represents the most immediate, sustainable and functional answer to the needs of a dwelling using the available resources and materials. Its knowledge allows us to design the architecture of the future, being more rational and sensible to the environment. The preservation of traditional buildings requires innovative technology as well as respect for history. This lecture will present a series of recent design projects which investigate historical construction methods and their long-term preservation.
Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas are architects and professors at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). They have extensively published on traditional architectural technology and its preservation, and have won a number of international awards for their work.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Building Technology Program, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact:
Kathleen Ross
253-1876
kross@mit.edu
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Crowdsourcing: Quality Assurance and Connections with Machine Learning
Friday, December 9 2011
1:00PM to 2:00PM
Refreshments: 12:45PM
MIT, CSAIL Reading Room (G882), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Panos Ipeirotis, NYU
Host: Rob Miller, MIT CSAIL
I will discuss the acquisition of "labels" for data items when the labeling is imperfect. Labels are values provided by humans for specified variables on data items, such as "PG-13" for "Adult Content Rating on this Web Page." With the increasing popularity of micro-outsourcing systems, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, it often
is possible to obtain less-than-expert labeling at low cost. I will present strategies of managing quality in a crowdsourcing environment, showing in parallel how to integrate data acquisition with the process of learning machine learning models. I illustrate the results using real-life applications from on-line advertising: leveraging
Mechanical Turk to help classify web pages as being objectionable to advertisers. Time permitting, I will also discuss our latest results showing that mice and Mechanical Turk workers are not that different after all.
Bio: Panos Ipeirotis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Information, Operations, and Management Sciences at the Stern School of Business of New York University. His recent research interests focus on crowdsourcing and on mining user-generated content on the Internet. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in 2004, with distinction. He has received three "Best Paper" awards (IEEE ICDE 2005, ACM SIGMOD 2006, WWW 2011), two "Best Paper Runner Up" awards (JCDL 2002, ACM KDD 2008), and is also a recipient of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. He also maintains the blog "A Computer Scientist in a Business School" where he blogs about crowdsourcing, user-generated content, and other random facts, and his blogging activity seems to generate more interest and recognition than any of the other activities mentioned in this bio.
Relevant URL: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/seminar.shtml
Contact: Katrina Panovich, kp@mit.edu
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Weatherization Barnraising
Saturday, December 10, 2011
9:30 AM to 12:30 PM
364 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421
HEET Cambridge and myself are looking for 20 volunteers who are interested in energy efficiency!
We are hosting a weatherization barnraising at our 100 year old home in Lexington, MA.
HEET will be educating people and training them to do specific (small) projects of their choice, which they can in turn bring the skills home to their own home.
We will meet at 9:30, work til12:30 and then share lunch with our new friends!
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2598040810/esearch?srnk=19
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Powerful Potential: The Gift of Energy
A Holiday Lecture for Children and their Parents
Saturday, December 10th
10:00 - 11:00 am or 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Harvard University, Science Center, Lecture Hall B, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Energy makes things work! In this lecture featuring Professor Howard Stone, we’ll explore where energy comes from, as well as electricity, energy conversion, and entropy. From explosions to electrons, we’ll take a look at many different forms of energy. We’ll have many kinetic activities for children to show their potential!
Free and Open to the Public
Preregistration required for guaranteed seating
Recommended for ages 7 and up
For more information, visit http://www.eduprograms.seas.harvard.edu/HolidayLecture or send email to: sciencetix @ seas.harvard.edu
For guaranteed seating please register online at: http://eduprograms.seas.harvard.edu/HolidayLecture.
Sponsored by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences , the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Harvard, and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) at Harvard.
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MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 14e-109, MIT Lewis Music Library
Dec. 12 MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley in a talk about his new work for gamelan (his first for that medium), commissioned by Galak Tika & MIT, to be premiered at Kresge on Dec 15. 5pm, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109. A Reception will follow. Free. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Tickets: NOT TIX REQ.
Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
For more information, contact:
Clarise Snyder
mta-request@mit.edu
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash'
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, AVT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
The Future of U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash': How Can Adversity Be Turned to Advantage?
Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Raphael Bostic, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Todd Sinai, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Tom Davidoff, University of British Columbia (not confirmed)
In the 20th-century, housing dominated "The American Dream" and was a driver of urban development and the consumer-led economy. In the past decade, housing led the great financial collapse. Now "Generation Y" may be looking for a new housing paradigm. The ramifications are fundamental and far-reaching???for the economy, the financial system, and the shape of our cities. How can we extricate ourselves from the current predicament? What reforms are needed? What is the future role of owning versus renting, of suburbs versus central cities, of single-family versus multi-family, and what is housing's role in the income disparities that are tearing at society? This panel invites discussion of several cutting-edge scholars and policy leaders dealing with housing markets in the U.S. today.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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Upcoming
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Please join American Farmland Trust for the second webinar in the series on Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach.
On Tuesday, December 13, AFT is offering an opportunity for people interested in local and regional food systems to learn about successful examples of county- and community-based food system planning. Presenters include Kathy Creahan of King County, Washington, Department of Natural Resources & Parks; Jason Grimm from Iowa Corridor Food and Agriculture Coalition; Katie Lynd of Multnomah County, Oregon, Office of Sustainability; and David Shabazian of Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Register for the webinar, Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach on the County or Community Level, at 2 pm on December 13 at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/679320458
In case you missed our first webinar on state and regional food systems planning, visit farmland.org/systems-planning to access a video recording, copies of presentations, and links to download model plans from our presenters: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.
We hope you will join us to learn more about how to form strategic partnerships, conduct food system assessments, gather stakeholder input, and establish forward-thinking goals and steps for implementing them.
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10 in 1 StreetTalk: Ten Transportation Talks
Tuesday, December 13
6:00pm-9:00pm (note earlier start time)
70 Pacific St, Cambridge, MA (around the corner from our 100 Sidney St office)
$5-$15 suggested donation. Beverages provided.
Come hear 10 innovative transportation research and advocacy stories from students, advocates, consultants, planners and engineers from around the Boston area. Learn about transit equity and the Silver Line, youth empowerment through cycling, and a Broadway Bikeway and Urban Renewal proposal all in the same night.
Stories are from around the world, from Brookline to China, Massachusetts Avenue to Scotland, Virginia to Toronto. LivableStreets sent out a request for your transportation stories last month, and on December 13 you will hear 10 of them, each seven minutes long.
Seventy minutes of presentations with a social break in the middle, and time afterwards to chat, ask questions, network, and discuss. Don't miss out, it's the last event of the year!
Contact kara@livablestreets.info
617.621.1746
http://www.LivableStreets.info
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Opportunity
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Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says, "The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete@dcsenergy.com, with the address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their criteria."
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Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
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Resource
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
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The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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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 http://thesprouts.org/studios
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@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
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com
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I was away from computers all this past week, doing some serious relaxing with friends in a beautiful place. Regular writing should resume next week.
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MIT Future of Electric Grid: An Interdisciplinary Study
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:30 PM Eastern
Webcast at http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=83545
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"Investigating the Gulf Oil Spill: Challenges and Opportunities"
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Energy Technology Innovation Policy/ Consortium for Energy Policy Research
Energy Policy Seminar Series:
Speaker: Richard Lazarus, Harvard Law School
Lunch will be provided.
Contact Name: Louisa Lund, louisa_lund@hks.harvard.edu
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Interconnected Energy Grids - a Future for Electric Energy
Monday, December 5, 2011
12:30-1:45
Tufts, Cabot 108b, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
Aleksandar Stanković, Alvin H. Howell Professor in Electrical Engineering
The area of energy processing, which includes power electronics, electric drives and power systems, is at a crossroads. Its challenges are both external (contribution to climate change, nonfunctional markets) and internal (inability to integrate renewable sources and efficient loads). The promise of energy processing comes from a growing array of potentially transformative technologies that currently exist in energy components, power electronics, distributed sensing, and networked control. The first part of this talk will review available energy technologies, and outline salient features of the existing energy systems. The second part will outline desirable future developments in electric energy systems with an emphasis on interconnection of networks with different energy carriers.
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How to Organize a Resilience Circle: Live Discussion Webinar
Monday December 5
3pm EST for an interactive webinar about organizing a Resilience Circle!
Register here.
We’ll talk about how to start a group for your community, including:
finding an organizing partner
finding participants through "base communities" and the "linking method"
how to share the idea of a circle with others
some notes on the curriculum
You will receive a confirmation email after registering with information about how to join the webinar.
Before the webinar, please take 10 - 15 minutes to familiarize yourself with the Resilience Circle seven-session curriculum. Contact us (info@localcircles.org) for an electronic copy.
Register for the free webinar here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/638377470
Onward,
Sarah Byrnes
Find us on Facebook
Follow us @ResilienCircles
System Requirements:
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows(R) 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh(R)-based attendees
Required: Mac OS(R) X 10.4.11 (Tiger(R)) or newer
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The Dark Side: Reporting on the War on Terror
WHEN Mon., Dec. 5, 2011, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, room S-030
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Lecture, Social Sciences
SPEAKER(S) Roger Cohen, New York Times columnist and Shorenstein Fellow, and Carlotta Gall, reporter for The New York Times and Nieman Fellow
CONTACT INFO Donna Hicks: dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu
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Thermodynamic analysis of the deposited carbon on the anode of solid-oxide fuel cells
Monday, December 05, 2011
4:15p–5:15p
MIT, Building 1-242, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Won Yong Lee, Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.I.T.
Center for Energy and Propulsion Research - Reacting Gas Dynamics Seminar
SPEAKER BIO.
Won Yong Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. Won Yong's research focuses on modeling of SOFCs using hydrocarbon fuels. He completed his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT in 2006, receiving the Padmakar P. Lele student award for outstanding research and thesis. A Samsung Scholarship supports his graduate study at MIT. Prior to coming to MIT, Won Yong earned his B.S. degree from Seoul National University in 2001, and worked as an engineer at Hyundai Heavy Industries.
ABSTRACT
Fuel cells are well known for their clean power-generation capability. A significant amount of research is focused on the development of hydrocarbon-fueled fuel cells as an alternative to hydrogen-fuel ones. This eliminates the challenges of hydrogen storage and delivery and the need to first produce hydrogen from hydrocarbon sources. The most promising fuel cell for conversion of hydrocarbon fuels is a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC). However, SOFCs operating with hydrocarbon fuels and a conventional Ni/YSZ anode suffer from performance degradation due to carbon formation and deposition on anode surfaces caused by internal reforming and conversion of the hydrocarbon. Since a kinetic model for carbon deposition is not yet fully developed, the problem has been analyzed mostly from a thermodynamic standpoint. However, the ability to predict the likelihood and extent of carbon deposition from a thermodynamic analysis are not always successful because the deposited carbon is typically assumed to be bulk graphite regardless of the actual carbon structure. In this talk, I will discuss (1) three types of carbon-deposit structures and their formation/growth mechanisms, and (2) how to incorporate this knowledge into the thermodynamic analysis in order to improve predictions of carbon deposition.
Refreshments will be provided.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): RGD Lab
For more information, contact: Jeff Hanna
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The Fate of Civic Education in a Connected World: A "Fred Friendly" Seminar
Monday, December 5, 6:00 pm
Harvard, Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/12/civiceducation#RSVP
Featuring Professor Charles Nesson as Provocateur and Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (Bard College), Peter Levine (Tufts University), Harry Lewis (Harvard SEAS), Elizabeth Lynn (Project on Civic Reflection) and Juan Carlos de Martin (Berkman Center) as participants.
Civic education is the cultivation of knowledge and traits that sustain democratic self-governance. The broad agreement that civic education is important disintegrates under close scrutiny. As the social networks of individuals become less based on geography and more based on friendships and common interests, consensus on shared civic values seems harder to achieve. American education is under stress at every level, and schools and colleges must re-imagine their commitment to civic education. This seminar will probe tensions that make civic education difficult, for example:
What's the problem? Doesn't everyone agree that civic education is important? Is civic education being squeezed out in schools, either because of the demands of subject testing or the desire to avoid political controversy?
Does the connectedness of social media support or impair the sorts of connections that lead to active citizenship?
Every tertiary institution wants to be a "global university." What, if any, are the civic responsibilities of a global institution? What civic values are transnational? Should American students learn the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
What about civic education outside of school--for adults, prisoners, and the home-schooled, for example?
Then there was model UN; now there are online simulations. Do they achieve the same ends?
Does civic education include instruction in civic activism, using social media for example?
With connectedness come instantaneity and constant interruptions. Is it even possible to maintain anyone's attention on understanding anything as subtle as the complexities of representative government?
This lively, "Fred Friendly" style seminar is timed to coincide with publication of two edited volumes: Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education (David Feith, ed.; Rowman & Littlefield), and What is College For?: The Public Purpose of Higher Education (Ellen Condliffe Lagemann and Harry Lewis, eds.)
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Bioclimatic Devices and Adaptations at Alijares Palace (Alhambra, 14th century) and other Nasrid Buildings
Monday, December 05, 2011
6:00p–7:30p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
AKPIA@MIT LECTURE
Speaker: Luis Jose Garcia Pulido, Post-Doctoral Fellow, AKPIA@MIT
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/akpia/www/lecturescurrent.htm
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture
For more information, contact:
Jose Luis Arguello
253-1400
akpiarch@mit.edu
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Elijah Wald Presents the History & Early Blues' Traditions
Monday, December 05, 2011
7:30p–9:00p
MIT, Building 4-231, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Elijah Wald
Bluesologist and author Elijah Wald presents the history and early traditions of the blues.
Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): Literature Section
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CReM Seminar Series: "Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cells, Where Is This All Taking Us" with Juan Enriquez
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2011
9:00am until 10:00am
Evans Biomedical Research Center, X Building, 650 Albany Street (X715), Boston
Speaker(s): Juan Enriquez
Juan Enriquez is a leading authority on the economic impact of life sciences on business and society and is a respected business leader and entrepreneur. He is a Managing Director at Excel Medical Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm. Prior to Excel, Juan was the founding Director of the Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project, and then founder of Biotechonomy which invested in BioTrove, Xcellerex, and Synthetic Genomics, a company he co founded with Drs. J. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith to apply life sciences to energy markets.
The Harvard Business Review showcased his ideas as one of the breakthrough concepts in its first HBR List. Fortune profiled him as Mr. Gene. Time asked him to co-organize the life sciences summit commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of DNA. Seed picked his ideas as one of fifty that "shaped our identity, our culture, and the world as we know it."
In addition, he is well known for giving a number of the popular TED talks, highlighting the future of biotechnology and the profound changes that advances in life sciences will have in business, politics, and society. He is the author of As The Future Catches You, which provided an accurate blueprint of how a bio-based economy changes industries and corporations, and The Untied States of America, which looks at the forces threatening America's future as a unified country. His latest publication is an eBook, Homo Evolutis: A Short Tour of our New Species, which describes a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, themselves, and other species. He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A., both with honors.
Watch Juan's TED talks at: http://www.ted.com/speakers/juan_enriquez.html
Open to General Public
Admission is free
More Info http://www.ted.com/speakers/juan_enriquez.html
Contact: Pulmonary Center
Amulya Iyer
amiyer@bu.edu
617-638-4466
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Congress is considering several bills that would censor the Internet and emulate China by creating a Great Firewall of the US.
*Join us on Dec. 6th to tell the Congress: Don?t Censor the Internet!*
Noon, Tuesday, December 6th.
JFK Federal Building, Cambridge St. entrance
Next to Boston City Hall Plaza
We will bring our fight against the censoring the Internet directly to Senator Brown?s Boston office on Tuesday, December 6th. We will meet at noon in front of the JFK Federal Building near the Cambridge St. entrance next to Boston City Hall Plaza. Please join us in telling Senator Brown and the Massachusetts Congressional delegation that they must oppose efforts to censor the Internet.
*NOTE: *Check http://www.masspirates.org/blog/dontcensorthenet/ for updated information on this rally and efforts to stop Congress from censoring the net.
*Posters*
*Why we oppose censoring the Internet*
Our Information Packet for Senators Regarding PIPA and CFSA
is available. We hope you will find it a useful reference when considering the implications of these harmful bills.
This rally is being organized by the Massachusetts Pirate Party.
Editorial Comment: This is an important issue and the comparison to China's Great Firewall to this legislation is not an exaggeration but confirmed by Rebecca McKinnon, former CNN China correspondent and co-founder of Global Voices Online (http://globalvoicesonline.net), a great resource to learn about the news of the world from people living in the countries they write about. I also find it interesting that there is a MA Pirate Party, a name and idea that is spreading internationally.
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Urban Citizenship and Community-Based Conservation in Indonesia
WHEN Tue., Dec. 6, 2011, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100-North, Room 106
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Trisiawati Bantacut: trisiawati_bantacut@hks.harvard.edu, 617.384.8156
NOTE Please join us as two Harvard student recipients of HKS Indonesia Program travel research grants present their work. Jaclyn Sachs, candidate for master’s degree in urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, will discuss the interplay between conceptions of urban citizenship and land contestation struggles in Indonesia. Sachi Oshima, bachelor’s degree candidate at Harvard College, will share her internship experience at Project ASRI in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Indonesia Research Fellow Inka Yusgiantoro will serve as a moderator. Offered every January-term and during the summer, HKS Indonesia student research grants encourages students from across Harvard University to apply their analytical skills to challenges in Indonesia through both internship as well as independent research projects.
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Electricity Market Design and the Green Agenda
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
12:15p–1:30p
MIT, Building 4-145, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. William W. Hogan
Energy & Environment Community Lecture/Discussion Series
Prof. William W. Hogan from Harvard Kennedy School will join us to discuss electricity sector's role in addressing climate change through improved efficiency, development of renewable energy, and use of low-carbon fuels--which creates expanded demands for and of electricity restructuring.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club, Energy & Environment Community
For more information, contact:
MIT Energy Club
energy-environment@mit.edu
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Optimal Information Revelation
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
2:30p–4:00p
MIT, Building E62-550, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Anton Kolotilin (MIT)
Web site: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/oe-seminar/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT/Sloan Seminar in Organizational Economics
For more information, contact: Theresa Benevento
theresa@mit.edu
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Engineering the Microstructural Architecture of New Materials Using Freedom and Constraint Topologies
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
3:00p–4:00p
MIT, Building 3-270, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Jonathan Hopkins, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The ability to design and fabricate microstructural architecture enables the creation of new materials that possess radically superior properties from those currently achieved by composites, alloys, and other naturally occurring materials. The Freedom and Constraint Topologies (FACT) synthesis approach has been successfully applied to the design and optimization of such new materials (e.g., materials with large negative Poisson's ratios and zero/negative thermal expansion coefficients). The basis for FACT is a comprehensive library of geometric shapes that represent the mathematics of screw theory and enable designers to visualize all the regions wherein various microstructural elements may be placed for achieving desired bulk material properties. In this way, designers may rapidly consider and compare every microstructural concept that best satisfies the design requirements before selecting the final concept.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MechE Seminar Series
For more information, contact:
Ian Hunter
617-253-3921
ihunter@mit.edu
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"IN THE DOCK: Lawrence Lessig Interrogates Jack Abramoff about Corruption"
WHEN Tue., Dec. 6, 2011, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Ames Courtroom (Austin Hall 200), Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Law, Lecture, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
SPEAKER(S) Jack Abramoff and Professor Lawrence Lessig
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO ethics@harvard.edu
NOTE Seating is limited. Overflow seating will be available.
The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics has had a long list of great souls offering their insight about ethics, philosophy, and the question of institutional corruption. With this event, we launch an occasional series drawing on people from the other side of that ethical line. The "In the Dock" series will, when appropriate and edifying, interview the guilty, not the innocent or inspirational. In this first of the series, Professor Lessig will interview Jack Abramoff about corruption and the nature of lobbying. We hope you will join us.
LINK http://ethics.harvard.edu/news-and-events/in-the-dock
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Join Boston Climate Action Network this Wednesday Evening to Plan the Future of the Climate Movement
Dimensions of Resilience: A Potluck and Discussion
Tuesday, December 6
6-9 pm
at the Nate Smith House, 155 Lamartine Street, Jamaica Plain
All are welcome to join this potluck and talk, featuring local activists working on the artistic, food, spiritual, and equity dimensions of Community Resilience. We'll hear from:
Andi Sutton, a JP performance artist - on the artistic dimensions
Jim Bukle, farmer at Allandale Farm - on the food sustainability dimensions
Lilli Nye, minister at West Roxbury UU church - on the spiritual dimensions
Juan Gonzalez, community organizer at JP NDC - on the social justice and equity dimensionsYouth Ambassadors from Bikes Not Bombs, to talk with us about their work creating an after school bike shop at Boys and Girls Clubs.
Q&A will be followed by break out groups on a variety of issues.
Please bring a dish to share for the meal.
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CSE Fraunhofer AR Project Introduction
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building 56-114, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Kokonowski
Dan recently joined Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy to head the development and implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) in coordination with the Building Technology Showcase (BTS).
The BTS is Fraunhofer CSE's plan to retrofit a historic building in South Boston's Innovation District, transforming it into a living laboratory and test bed for the latest technologies in sustainable energy systems. The BTS will also include an Interactive Lobby Showcase.
With the design and layout headed by Daniel, the showcase will deploy the use of the latest Audio/Visual technologies developed by Fraunhofer and industry partners. This is including, but not limited to; interactive hand gesturing displays, facial recognition software, 3-D televisions, and potentially bidirectional OLED microdisplays.
Web site: http://mit.edu/e-club/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Entrepreneurs Club
For more information, contact:
MIT Solar Decathlon
SolarDecathlon@mit.edu
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“Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST): What role does scientific information on ecosystem services play in decision-making?”
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
12:00pm - 1:30pm
124 Mt Auburn Street, Suite 160, Room 105, Cambridge
Emily McKenzie, Natural Capital Project
Lunch will be served, please RSVP here: http://bit.ly/sxkAaR to ensure enough food is ordered.
Presentation summary: InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs) is a suite of models developed by the Natural Capital Project that provides information on where ecosystem services are provided and how they will be affected by alternative plans and policies. InVEST is designed to help local, regional and national decision-makers incorporate ecosystem services into processes such as spatial planning, strategic environmental assessments and payments for ecosystem services. Based on experiences applying InVEST around the world, the Natural Capital Project is beginning to assess if, how and when decisions are transformed by access to scientific information on ecosystem services.
Emily McKenzie leads the science-policy interface work of the Natural Capital Project (NatCap), and manages NatCap’s work at WWF. Her focus is on enabling scientific information on ecosystem services to be effectively incorporated into institutions, policies and decisions. Emily’s research interests include environmental valuation, and policies and payments for ecosystem services. She has applied environmental economics to policy questions in sixteen countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, Caribbean and Europe. Her research has helped to ensure nature’s benefits to people are considered in decisions around land use planning in Indonesia, black pearl farming in the Cook Islands, aggregates extraction in the Marshall Islands and forest biodiversity in Montserrat. She has built several environmental economics programs - leading research, developing tools, building capacity and providing technical and policy advice. She previously worked as Environmental Economics Advisor to the UK government, based at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. In 2003-2005, she was awarded an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship as the Resource Economist at the Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji. Emily received a Masters Degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
Contact:
Lauren Bloomberg
lauren_bloomberg@hks.harvard.edu
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The Occupy Movement and Student Debt Refusal
WHEN Wed., Dec. 7, 2011, 4:15 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Room S050, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics
SPEAKER(S) Andrew Ross, professor of social and cultural analysis, NYU
CONTACT INFO jbarnard@wcfia.harvard.edu, 617.495.8923
LINK http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/jwe/
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COMPUTATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL PHENOMENA IN ON-LINE NETWORKS
12/7/2011
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142
Description: With an increasing amount of social interaction taking place in the digital domain, and often in public on-line settings, we are accumulating enormous amounts of data about phenomena that were once essentially invisible to us: the collective behavior and social interactions of hundreds of millions of people, recorded at unprecedented levels of scale and resolution. Analyzing this data computationally offers new insights into the design of on-line applications, as well as a new perspective on fundamental questions in the social sciences. We discuss how this perspective can be applied to questions involving network structure and the dynamics of interaction among individuals, with a particular focus on the ways in which evaluation, opinion, and in some cases polarization manifest themselves at large scales in the on-line domain Biography Jon Kleinberg is the Tisch University Professor in the Computer Science Department at Cornell University. His research focuses on issues at the interface of networks and information, with an emphasis on the social and information networks that underpin the Web and other on-line media. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation, and the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council. He is the recipient of MacArthur, Packard, and Sloan Foundation Fellowships, as well as awards including the Nevanlinna Prize from the International Mathematical Union and the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: A Planet of Civic Laboratories: The Future of Cities, Information and Inclusion
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Anthony Townsend, Research Director, Institute for the Future
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
How are tools like smart phone apps and mobile communications changing the way people experience and interact with the built environment? How will new forms of visualization and simulation inform the planning process? What new skills will urban designers need to integrate ubiquitous technologies into mediated public spaces, and how can we re-interpret key planning tenets - such as the ideas of Lynch, Jacobs and Alexander - in a world of ubiquitous information technology?
Lecture at 5:30, with reception following.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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HTC Forum: The Body as Archive/ The Archive as Body: Live Art in Los Angeles 1970-75, A Case Study
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
6:30p–8:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Amelia Jones
HTC Forum: After the fact
The re-presentation of ephemeral or fragile works of art and architecture raises vital questions regarding ideas of originality, authenticity, authority, and temporality. Whether reconstructed, repurposed, or reenacted, these works establish new meanings in relation to their new spatial, social, and temporal contexts while maintaining vestigial but unimpeachable reference to their previous histories. This semester's HTC Forum invites artists, historians, and curators who critically engage re-presentation, to surface the issues that it poses for the production and presentation of history.
Amelia Jones is Professor and Grierson Chair in Visual Culture in the Department of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University. She practices a queer, anti-racist, feminist history and theory of twentieth- and twenty-first century Euro-American visual arts, including performance, film, video, and installation. Dr. Jones is the author of numerous books, including: Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification in the Visual Arts (2012) and Perform Repeat Record: Live Art in History (co-edited with Adrian Heathfield, 2012). Self/Image: Technology, Representation, and the Contemporary Subject (2006), Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada (2004), and Body Art/Performing the Subject (1998). She has published several articles on the subject of presence and live art, most recently including "'The Artist is Present': Artistic Re-enactments and the Impossibility of Presence," in the Spring 2011 volume of The Drama Review. Dr. Jones has also curated such landmark exhibitions as "Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History," held at UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum of Art in 1996.
Web site: http://htc.scripts.mit.edu/wordpress/?page_id=1305
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Architecture, History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art
For more information, contact:
258-8439/8
htc@mit.edu
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ENCUENTRO5 TURNS 5! COMMEMORATIVE DINNER: Celebrating 5 solid years and 5 inspiring honorees!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
7:00 pm
Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor, Chinatown T, Boston
As a dynamic movement-building space, encuentro 5 has balanced the day-to-dayneeds of grassroots organizations and community groups with the wide-ranging
social change goals that their organizers embrace for 5 solid years ofsolidarity and inspiration.
For e5, challenging the militarism and corporate globalization that institutionalize the current moment of capitalism and white supremacy has meant offering a space for the spontaneous needs of local groups, housing over a dozen resident organizations, offering offices for new projects and small NGOs, archiving the efforts of social movements, providing cross-movement institutional memory, resourcing emerging projects with much needed research, materials and equipment, and ongoing daily efforts of networking and support.
Although it has meant a lot of intense work, it has also been greatly inspiring to connect with creative activists, engaging writers, soulful musicians and dedicated community members. Together, we have made e5 a platform for major demonstrations, thoughtful debates, heartwarming performances, and strategic conversations as a review of the e5 website reveals.
Always thriving on the insights and energy of countless groups and individuals, we chose five exemplary honorees who have contributed directly to e5's programming and/or inspired the work we do. To honor them and to launch the e5 movement-builders sustainer program, e5 is hosting its first annual,
Commemorative Dinner, at 7pm Wednesday, December 7, 2012.
The five honorees are:
Sergio Reyes, a Chilean-born revolutionary. musician, and founder of the Boston May Day Committee and a founder of Latin@s for Social Change
Avi Chomsky, a scholar and activist whose work connects people across borders
Paul Shannon, a peace movement veteran active in United for Justice with Peace and a founder of the Majority Agenda Project who has been on staff at the
American Friends Service Committee for over 30 years.
Robin Jacks, a long-time activist challenging low-wage work in the South and a founder of the #OccupyBoston effort
Dorotea Manuela, a founder of the Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee, a member of the Downtown Workers Center collective, and an active defender of
Puerto Rican sovereignty.
On December 7th, join us to honor these 5 outstanding movement builders, to celebrate the extraordinary efforts of the e5 Residents and the expansive social justice community, and to make e5 a sustainable effort for 2012! RSVP at http://encuentro5.org/home/node/234
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Promoting Safety, Protecting the Environment and Conserving Offshore Resources Through Vigorous Regulatory Oversight and Enforcement
WHEN Thu., Dec. 8, 2011, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Science, Social Sciences, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government
SPEAKER(S) Michael R. Bromwich, director, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, US Department of Interior
CONTACT INFO Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to mrcbg@ksg.harvard.edu
---------------------------------
How Social Networks Shape Human Behavior...and Vice Versa
December 8, 2011
2:50 pm - 4:00 pm
Tufts, Halligan 111A, 161 College Avenue, Medford
Speaker: Alex (Sandy) Pentland, MIT Media Lab
Host: Soha Hassoun
Abstract: Increased productivity and creative output lie in understanding how social networks - face-to-face and digital - shape the behavior both of employees and customers. By use of the `big data' collected by my research group's unique `reality mining' sensor platforms, we can measure the behavior of hundreds of people in great detail and over long periods of time, and build mathematical models that provide accurate predictions of human decision making performance across a wide range of scales...team, organization, and even city. We can also use these models to more effectively shape social behaviors, as illustrated by our win of DARPA's 40th Anniversary of the Internet Grand Challenge. As a consequence of these new capabilities personal data is becoming ever more valuable, and also more dangerous. To address this concern I will describe my work with the World Economic Forum that has lead to the emergence of a new personal data framework.
Bio: Alex `Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, and advises the World Economic Forum, Nissan Motor Corporation, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT’s Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital’s Center for Future Health.
Sandy is one of the world's most-cited computer scientists, and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, mobile computing, image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has recently been featured in Nature, Science, the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review, and the popular press.
-------------------------------
Harvard Thinks Green
WHEN Thu., Dec. 8, 2011, 5 – 6:30 p.m.
WHERE Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Health Sciences, Humanities, Law, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Office for Sustainability, Harvard Thinks Big, Harvard University Center for the Environment
SPEAKER(S)
Eric Chivian, HMS
Rebecca Henderson, HBS
Rob Kaplan, HBS
Richard Lazarus, HLS
James McCarthy, FAS
Christoph Reinhart, GSD
CONTACT INFO jennifer_stacy@harvard.edu
NOTE 6 all-star environmental faculty, 6 big green ideas, 10 minutes each
LINK http://green.harvard.edu/thinksgreen
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Root Cause's Social Innovation Forum presents: Celebrating Innovation: A Winter Reception
Thursday, December 8, 2011
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142
Please join Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum for cocktails and hors d'oeuvre as we welcome our 2012 Social Innovators and celebrate the 2011 Innovators' achievements
The evening will feature the formal announcement of the 2012 Social Innovators and the presentation of the 6th Annual Margaret Stewart Lindsay Inspiration Award to Lindsay Hyde, President and Founder of Strong Women, Strong Girls, a 2007 Social Innovator. The award is sponsored by the Margaret Stewart Lindsay Foundation.
Help us congratulate our 2011 Social Innovators...
Future Chefs
Fiscal Health Vital Signs, a program of DotWell
Massachusetts Senior Action Council
MathPOWER
Smart from the Start
...and be the first to meet our 2012 Social Innovators, one for each of the following social issue tracks:
At-Risk Children and Youth in MetroWest: Providing Adult Guidance and Support
Sponsoring Partner: The Sudbury Foundation
Food, Nutrition, and Fitness: Promoting Healthy Living for Children, Youth, and Families
Sponsoring Partner: The Trefler Foundation
Healthy Aging: Engaging and Supporting Older Adults in their Communities
Sponsoring Partner: Tufts Health Plan Foundation
Impact Investing: Scaling Social Enterprise
Sponsoring Partner: The Devonshire Foundation
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education and Enrichment for Children and Youth
Sponsoring Partners: Amelia Peabody Foundation and Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
Workforce Development: Skills and Support for Workers in Today’s Economy
Sponsoring Partner: Highland Street Foundation
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: Building resilience in in low- and middle-income nations: Challenges for city governments
Thursday, December 08, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 3-370, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow, Human Settlements Group, Home International Institute for Environment and Development
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
Most of the measures needed to build resilience to climate change for urban populations fall to city and municipal governments -- a difficult challenge when many are struggling to provide basic infrastructure and services, and most have shown themselves to be unable or unwilling to act to reduce disaster risks that are already known. In the face of these difficulties, how can planners concerned with climate change be most effective?
David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Editor of the international journal Environment and Urbanization. A development planner by training with a Doctorate in social policy, he has long had an interest in the power and capacity of grassroots organizations formed by residents of informal settlements; this was the focus of a book written with Jorge Hardoy in 1989 entitled Squatter Citizen. More recent books published by Earthscan include: The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Cities (editor), 1999; Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World (with Jorge Hardoy and Diana Mitlin), 2001; Empowering Squatter Citizen (co-editor with Diana Mitlin), 2004 and Adapting Cities to Climate Change (co-editor with Jane Bicknell and David Dodman), 2009.
Lecture at 5:30, followed by reception in 9-450.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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An Evening Celebrating the Legacy of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS)
Thursday, December 08, 2011
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building E15-001, MIT Cube, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
PROGRAM
Lecture: Marton Orosz, Curator and Gyorgy Kepes Fellow for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture and Technology
Screening: Centerbeam, Directed by Richard Leacock and Jon Rubin. CAVS 1978, 16 mm, color, 13 min.
Round table discussion:
Otto Piene, Professor and CAVS Director Emeritus
Elizabeth Goldring, former CAVS Co-Director and ACT Fellow
Joan Brigham, former CAVS Fellow
Lowry Burgess, former CAVS Fellow
Alejandro Sina, former CAVS Fellow
Aldo Tambellini, former CAVS Fellow
Moderated by Joao Ribas, Curator, List Visual Arts Center
The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture and Technology is a joint initiative of the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), tranzit.org and ERSTE Foundation. The preservation of Centerbeam is supported in part by the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation.
Web site: http://visualarts.mit.edu/about/events.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to the public.
Tickets: http://visionsandprojections.eventbrite.com/
Sponsor(s): MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology
For more information, contact:
Laura Anca Chichisan Pallone
617-253-5229
act@mit.edu
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MIT Clean Energy Prize Info Session & Networking Opportunity
Thursday, December 8, 2011
6:30pm
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin 119, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Want to shape our energy future through entrepreneurship? Interested in winning $200,000?
Come learn about the MIT CLEAN ENERGY PRIZE
The MIT Clean Energy Prize is a multi-stage, student-organized business plan competition. The top twenty-one teams receive professional, legal and industry mentors, and three finalists are awarded $20,000. The competition culminates with a $200,000 Grand Prize winner in April 2012.
Info Session and Networking Opportunity
(Meet potential teammates!)
Pizza will be provided!
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dExHcTZSQl9BbUxUOVRPM2pxOTNRQ1E6MQ
http://cep.mit.edu/
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An Update on Deep Energy Retrofits for Buildings - the Intersection of Human-Based and Energy Efficient Design
Thursday, December 08 2011
7:00pm reception, program begins at 7:30 pm
1st Parish Unitarian Church, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge
BOSTON AREA SOLAR ENERGY ASSOCIATION Forum
Speakers: Henry MacLean (Timeless Architecture) & Friends
Contact : http://www.basea.org/
The BASEA forums are held September through May, the second Thursday of each month, except as noted. The forums are free and open to the public.
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Renewable Energy-Related Transmission for New Englanders: By Land and By Sea
Friday, December 9, 2011
9:00 am to 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 13th Floor, Boston
New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable
We welcome two new speakers to our December 9 Roundtable: Associate Deputy Minister for Energy, Mario Gosselin, Québec Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, and Deepwater Wind CEO, William Moore.
Our 126th New England Electric Restructuring Roundtable focuses on renewable energy-related transmission for New Englanders - both by land and by sea. Utility-scale wind, hydro, and even solar must be sited in proximity to the resource, which is often far from population centers, thus necessitating the building of new transmission lines. The siting, cost, and cost allocation related to these lines is often no less (and sometimes more) controversial than the renewable energy resources they are built to transmit. And the promise of off-shore wind development on the East Coast presents a bevy of additional new technical and other challenges. At this Roundtable, we will explore numerous, very current, renewable energy-related transmission studies and proposed projects.
Our first panel focuses primarily on land-based renewable energy-related transmission. Starting off the panel is Associate Deputy Minister for Energy, Mario Gosselin, from Québec's Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife, who will discuss Québec's current and planned renewable energy resources that could be exported to the Northeast. David Whiteley , Executive Director for the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC) then discusses the collaborative scenario planning analysis currently underway on transmission and renewables for the entire Eastern Interconnect (comprising 24 RTOs and over 40 states). Next, First Wind Executive VP/CDO, Kurt Adams, provides a wind developer's perspective on transmission, including potential transmission projects in Maine. David H. Boguslawski, VP for Transmission Strategy/Operations atNortheast Utilities rounds out the panel with a presentation on a transmission owner's perspective on connecting New England wind to the grid and NU/NSTAR's proposed Northern Pass Transmission Project to bring approximately 1,200 MW of mainly hydro power from Québec to New England through New Hampshire.
Our second panel brings together three CEO's to discuss sea-based renewable energy-related transmission. Robert Mitchell, CEO ofAtlantic Wind Connection kicks off the panel with a discussion of Atlantic Wind's proposal to construct a transmission line 20 miles off-shore, between New Jersey and Virginia, to facilitate off-shore wind development (aka Google Line) Edward Krapels, CEO pf Anbaric Transmission, then discusses Anbaric's just- announced (11/14) Bay State Offshore Wind Transmission System, to be located 25 miles off-shore in Massachusetts, to carry up to 2,000 MW of off-shore wind to the NE Grid. Deepwater Wind CEO William Moore rounds out the panel by discussing the Deepwater Wind Energy Center proposal to build 1,000 MW of off-shore wind off the Rhode Island coast, with transmission to both New England and Long Island.
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Architecture Lecture Series - Design and Computation
Friday, December 09, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Ayodh Kamath
Title: Craft and the Computer: Theory and Practice
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Computation Group Events
For more information, contact:
Daniela Stoudenkova
danielas@mit.edu
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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES: Vernacular Construction Technology: Knowledge and Preservation
Monday, December 12, 2011
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, The Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas; Polytechnic University of Valencia
Building Technology Fall 2011 Lecture Series
Vernacular construction technology represents the most immediate, sustainable and functional answer to the needs of a dwelling using the available resources and materials. Its knowledge allows us to design the architecture of the future, being more rational and sensible to the environment. The preservation of traditional buildings requires innovative technology as well as respect for history. This lecture will present a series of recent design projects which investigate historical construction methods and their long-term preservation.
Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas are architects and professors at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain). They have extensively published on traditional architectural technology and its preservation, and have won a number of international awards for their work.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Building Technology Program, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact:
Kathleen Ross
253-1876
kross@mit.edu
---------------------------------
Crowdsourcing: Quality Assurance and Connections with Machine Learning
Friday, December 9 2011
1:00PM to 2:00PM
Refreshments: 12:45PM
MIT, CSAIL Reading Room (G882), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Panos Ipeirotis, NYU
Host: Rob Miller, MIT CSAIL
I will discuss the acquisition of "labels" for data items when the labeling is imperfect. Labels are values provided by humans for specified variables on data items, such as "PG-13" for "Adult Content Rating on this Web Page." With the increasing popularity of micro-outsourcing systems, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, it often
is possible to obtain less-than-expert labeling at low cost. I will present strategies of managing quality in a crowdsourcing environment, showing in parallel how to integrate data acquisition with the process of learning machine learning models. I illustrate the results using real-life applications from on-line advertising: leveraging
Mechanical Turk to help classify web pages as being objectionable to advertisers. Time permitting, I will also discuss our latest results showing that mice and Mechanical Turk workers are not that different after all.
Bio: Panos Ipeirotis is an Associate Professor at the Department of Information, Operations, and Management Sciences at the Stern School of Business of New York University. His recent research interests focus on crowdsourcing and on mining user-generated content on the Internet. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in 2004, with distinction. He has received three "Best Paper" awards (IEEE ICDE 2005, ACM SIGMOD 2006, WWW 2011), two "Best Paper Runner Up" awards (JCDL 2002, ACM KDD 2008), and is also a recipient of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. He also maintains the blog "A Computer Scientist in a Business School" where he blogs about crowdsourcing, user-generated content, and other random facts, and his blogging activity seems to generate more interest and recognition than any of the other activities mentioned in this bio.
Relevant URL: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/seminar.shtml
Contact: Katrina Panovich, kp@mit.edu
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Weatherization Barnraising
Saturday, December 10, 2011
9:30 AM to 12:30 PM
364 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421
HEET Cambridge and myself are looking for 20 volunteers who are interested in energy efficiency!
We are hosting a weatherization barnraising at our 100 year old home in Lexington, MA.
HEET will be educating people and training them to do specific (small) projects of their choice, which they can in turn bring the skills home to their own home.
We will meet at 9:30, work til12:30 and then share lunch with our new friends!
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2598040810/esearch?srnk=19
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Powerful Potential: The Gift of Energy
A Holiday Lecture for Children and their Parents
Saturday, December 10th
10:00 - 11:00 am or 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Harvard University, Science Center, Lecture Hall B, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Energy makes things work! In this lecture featuring Professor Howard Stone, we’ll explore where energy comes from, as well as electricity, energy conversion, and entropy. From explosions to electrons, we’ll take a look at many different forms of energy. We’ll have many kinetic activities for children to show their potential!
Free and Open to the Public
Preregistration required for guaranteed seating
Recommended for ages 7 and up
For more information, visit http://www.eduprograms.seas.harvard.edu/HolidayLecture or send email to: sciencetix @ seas.harvard.edu
For guaranteed seating please register online at: http://eduprograms.seas.harvard.edu/HolidayLecture.
Sponsored by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences , the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Harvard, and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) at Harvard.
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MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 14e-109, MIT Lewis Music Library
Dec. 12 MTA Composer Forum features Terry Riley in a talk about his new work for gamelan (his first for that medium), commissioned by Galak Tika & MIT, to be premiered at Kresge on Dec 15. 5pm, MIT Lewis Music Library, 14E-109. A Reception will follow. Free. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Tickets: NOT TIX REQ.
Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
For more information, contact:
Clarise Snyder
mta-request@mit.edu
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Reinventing the City @ MIT: U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash'
Monday, December 12, 2011
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, AVT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Reinventing the City @ MIT
During 2011-2012, the Department of Urban Studies & Planning will host a series of high-profile speakers and panels on a wide-range of topics related to the future of cities, planning, participation, economies, technology, design, and development. This series is part of a multi-year initiative in the department to raise cutting-edge questions about the field in an era of rapid change.
See http://dusp.mit.edu/p.lasso?t=7:6:0 for more in this series.
The Future of U.S. Housing & Urban Development in the Aftermath of the 'Great Crash': How Can Adversity Be Turned to Advantage?
Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Raphael Bostic, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Todd Sinai, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Tom Davidoff, University of British Columbia (not confirmed)
In the 20th-century, housing dominated "The American Dream" and was a driver of urban development and the consumer-led economy. In the past decade, housing led the great financial collapse. Now "Generation Y" may be looking for a new housing paradigm. The ramifications are fundamental and far-reaching???for the economy, the financial system, and the shape of our cities. How can we extricate ourselves from the current predicament? What reforms are needed? What is the future role of owning versus renting, of suburbs versus central cities, of single-family versus multi-family, and what is housing's role in the income disparities that are tearing at society? This panel invites discussion of several cutting-edge scholars and policy leaders dealing with housing markets in the U.S. today.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn@mit.edu
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Upcoming
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Please join American Farmland Trust for the second webinar in the series on Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach.
On Tuesday, December 13, AFT is offering an opportunity for people interested in local and regional food systems to learn about successful examples of county- and community-based food system planning. Presenters include Kathy Creahan of King County, Washington, Department of Natural Resources & Parks; Jason Grimm from Iowa Corridor Food and Agriculture Coalition; Katie Lynd of Multnomah County, Oregon, Office of Sustainability; and David Shabazian of Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Register for the webinar, Planning for Food and Agriculture: Taking a Systems Approach on the County or Community Level, at 2 pm on December 13 at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/679320458
In case you missed our first webinar on state and regional food systems planning, visit farmland.org/systems-planning to access a video recording, copies of presentations, and links to download model plans from our presenters: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.
We hope you will join us to learn more about how to form strategic partnerships, conduct food system assessments, gather stakeholder input, and establish forward-thinking goals and steps for implementing them.
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10 in 1 StreetTalk: Ten Transportation Talks
Tuesday, December 13
6:00pm-9:00pm (note earlier start time)
70 Pacific St, Cambridge, MA (around the corner from our 100 Sidney St office)
$5-$15 suggested donation. Beverages provided.
Come hear 10 innovative transportation research and advocacy stories from students, advocates, consultants, planners and engineers from around the Boston area. Learn about transit equity and the Silver Line, youth empowerment through cycling, and a Broadway Bikeway and Urban Renewal proposal all in the same night.
Stories are from around the world, from Brookline to China, Massachusetts Avenue to Scotland, Virginia to Toronto. LivableStreets sent out a request for your transportation stories last month, and on December 13 you will hear 10 of them, each seven minutes long.
Seventy minutes of presentations with a social break in the middle, and time afterwards to chat, ask questions, network, and discuss. Don't miss out, it's the last event of the year!
Contact kara@livablestreets.info
617.621.1746
http://www.LivableStreets.info
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Opportunity
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Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says, "The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete@dcsenergy.com, with the address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their criteria."
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Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
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Resource
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
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The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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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 http://thesprouts.org/studios
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@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
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
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