Courses tagged with "Nutrition" (421)

This course explores the ultimate limits to communication and computation, with an emphasis on the physical nature of information and information processing. Topics include: information and computation, digital signals, codes and compression, applications such as biological representations of information, logic circuits, computer architectures, and algorithmic information, noise, probability, error correction, reversible and irreversible operations, physics of computation, and quantum computation. The concept of entropy applied to channel capacity and to the second law of thermodynamics.

This course explores electromagnetic phenomena in modern applications, including wireless and optical communications, circuits, computer interconnects and peripherals, microwave communications and radar, antennas, sensors, micro-electromechanical systems, and power generation and transmission. Fundamentals include quasistatic and dynamic solutions to Maxwell's equations; waves, radiation, and diffraction; coupling to media and structures; guided waves; resonance; acoustic analogs; and forces, power, and energy.

This course is an introduction to the design, analysis, and fundamental limits of wireless transmission systems. Topics to be covered include: wireless channel and system models; fading and diversity; resource management and power control; multiple-antenna and MIMO systems; space-time codes and decoding algorithms; multiple-access techniques and multiuser detection; broadcast codes and precoding; cellular and ad-hoc network topologies; OFDM and ultrawideband systems; and architectural issues.

This course will introduce you to the field of computer science and the fundamentals of computer programming. Introduction to Computer Science I is specifically designed for students with no prior programming experience, and taking this course does not require a background in Computer Science. This course will touch upon a variety of fundamental topics within the field of Computer Science and will use Java, a high-level, portable, and well-constructed computer programming language developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), to demonstrate those principles. We will begin with an overview of the course topics as well as a brief history of software development. We will cover basic object-oriented programming terminology and concepts such as objects, classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, as well as the fundamentals of Java, its primitive data types, relational operators, control statements, exception handling, and file input /output. By the end of the course, you should have a strong understanding of the fundam…

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

Modern computing platforms provide unprecedented amounts of raw computational power. But significant complexity comes along with this power, to the point that making useful computations exploit even a fraction of the potential of the computing platform is a substantial challenge. Indeed, obtaining good performance requires a comprehensive understanding of all layers of the underlying platform, deep insight into the computation at hand, and the ingenuity and creativity required to obtain an effective mapping of the computation onto the machine. The reward for mastering these sophisticated and challenging topics is the ability to make computations that can process large amount of data orders of magnitude more quickly and efficiently and to obtain results that are unavailable with standard practice.

This class is a hands-on, project-based introduction to building scalable and high-performance software systems. Topics include performance analysis, algorithmic techniques for high performance, instruction-level optimizations, cache and memory hierarchy optimization, parallel programming, and building scalable distributed systems.

The course also includes design reviews with industry mentors, as described in this MIT News article.

Software engineering is a discipline that allows us to apply engineering and computer science concepts in the development and maintenance of reliable, usable, and dependable software. The concept of software engineering was first discussed at the 1968 NATO Science Committee in Germany. Today, many practitioners still debate over the term software engineering, often arguing that this discipline does not meet the criteria of engineering; rather, it should be called software development. There are several areas to focus on within software engineering, such as design, development, testing, maintenance, and management. Software development outside of the classroom is a very complex process, mostly because real-world software is much larger and more complex. The purpose of this course is to present software engineering as a body of knowledge. The course is designed to present software engineering concepts and principles in parallel with the software development life cycle. The course will begin with an introducti…

When we use programming for problem-solving purposes, data must be stored in certain forms, or Data Structures, so that operations on that data will yield a specific type of output.  Imagine, for example, that a non-profit is having trouble staying afloat and needs an increase in donation.  It decides it wants to keep track of its donors in a program in order to figure out who is contributing and why.  You would first need to define the properties that would define those donors: name, address, amount donated, date of donation, and so on.  Then, when the non-profit wants to determine how to best reach out to their donors, it can create a model of the average donor that contributes to the non-profitsay, for example, based on size of gift and locationso that it can better determine who is most receptive to its mission.  In this case, size of gift and location are the “data” of the donor model.  If the non-profit were to use this model, it would be identifying real donors by first generating an abstract…

6.453 Quantum Optical Communication is one of a collection of MIT classes that deals with aspects of an emerging field known as quantum information science. This course covers Quantum Optics, Single-Mode and Two-Mode Quantum Systems, Multi-Mode Quantum Systems, Nonlinear Optics, and Quantum System Theory.

The Internet has become one of the most important components of our life. We browse the Web, check e-mails, make VoIP phone calls, and have video conferences via computers. All of these applications are made possible by networking computers together, and this complex network of computers is usually referred to as the Internet. This course is designed to give you a clear understanding of how networks, from in-home local area networks, or LANS, to the massive and global Internet, are built and how they allow us to use computers to share information and communicate with one another. Unit 1 introduces you to an explanation of what computer networks are as well as to some basic terminology fundamental to understanding computer networks. You will also familiarize yourself with the concept of layers, which compose the framework around which networks are built. Next, Unit 2 explains the concept of protocols. A computer communication (or network) protocol defines rules and conventions for communication between netwo…

User dependency on the Internet increases every day; nowadays, everyday tasks like paying bills, communicating with others, and applying for jobs are all routinely carried out via the Internet.  While the Internet represents a huge network, it is meaningless without the applications that it supports.  These applications enable user interaction and facilitate everyday activities.  In this course, we will learn about the design and implementation of network-based applications, focusing on Object-Oriented Programming and programming techniques both at the application layer and the transport layer of the TCP/IP protocol stack.  Additional concepts covered include text transport (moving text from one computer to another over the network), data transport, object transport, remote function calls, and, finally, class transport.  You will approach these concepts from an Object-Oriented point of view, learning to implement design patterns in your code in order to ensure software reusability (a highly desirable fea…

Technology continues to evolve and provide us with increasingly powerful mobile devices.  As a result, applications that can run on a browser must also be written such that they are compatible with mobile devices, the majority of which are now web-enabled.  Meanwhile, there is an increasing demand for native applications that can be downloaded to and run on mobile devices.  This course will address these trends, teaching you to think about the unique design and deployment issues that must be taken into consideration when developing applications for mobile devices. This course will expand upon what has been covered in CS305: Web Development [1].  We will specifically look at the tools used to design mobile applications.  We will learn about mobile platforms, mobile browsers, native applications, and best practices in terms of test usability. [1] http://www.saylor.org/courses/cs305/…

Because we have compiler programs, software developers often take the process of compilation for granted.  However, as a software developer, you should cultivate a solid understanding of how compilers work in order to develop the strongest code possible and fully understand its underlying language.  In addition, the compilation process comprises techniques that are applicable to the development of many software applications.  As such, this course will introduce you to the compilation process, present foundational topics on formal languages and outline each of the essential compiler steps: scanning, parsing, translation and semantic analysis, code generation, and optimization.  By the end of the class, you will have a strong understanding of what it means to compile a program, what happens in the process of translating a higher-level language into a lower-level language, and the applicability of the steps of the compilation process to other applications.

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

If you invest in financial markets, you may want to predict the price of a stock in six months from now on the basis of company performance measures and other economic factors. As a college student, you may be interested in knowing the dependence of the mean starting salary of a college graduate, based on your GPA. These are just some examples that highlight how statistics are used in our modern society. To figure out the desired information for each example, you need data to analyze. The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the subject of statistics as a science of data. There is data abound in this information age; how to extract useful knowledge and gain a sound understanding in complex data sets has been more of a challenge. In this course, we will focus on the fundamentals of statistics, which may be broadly described as the techniques to collect, clarify, summarize, organize, analyze, and interpret numerical information. This course will begin with a brief overview of the discipline of stat…

This course focuses on the fundamentals of computer algorithms, emphasizing methods useful in practice.  We look into the algorithm analysis as a way to understand behavior of computer programs as a function of its input size.  Using the big-O notation, we classify algorithms by their efficiency.  We look into basic algorithm strategies and approaches to problem solving.  Some of these approaches include the divide and conquer method, dynamic programming, and greedy programming paradigms.  Sorting and searching algorithms are discussed in detail as they form part of a solution to a large number of problems solved using computers.  We also provide an introduction to the graph theory and graph algorithms as they are also used in many computer-based applications today.  We conclude the course with a look into a special class of problems called the NP-complete problems.

This course will present advanced topics in Artificial Intelligence (AI).  We will begin by defining the term “software agent” and discussing how software agents differ from programs in general.  We will then take a look at those problems in the field of AI that tend to receive the most attention.  Different researchers approach these problems differently.  In this course, we will focus on how to build and search graph data structures needed to create software agents, an approach that you will find useful for solving many problems in AI.  We will also learn to “break down” larger problems into a number of more specific, manageable sub-problems. In the latter portion of this course, we will review the study of logic and conceptualize the differences between propositional logic, first-order logic, fuzzy logic, and default logic.  After learning about statistical tools commonly used in AI and about the basic symbol system used to represent knowledge, we will focus on artificial neural network and…

This course focuses on the fundamentals of information security that are used in protecting both the information present in computer storage as well as information traveling over computer networks. Interest in information security has been spurred by the pervasive use of computer-based applications such as information systems, databases, and the Internet. Information security has also emerged as a national goal in the United States and in other countries with national defense and homeland security implications. Information security is enabled through securing data, computers, and networks. In this course, we will look into such topics as fundamentals of information security, computer security technology and principles, access control mechanisms, cryptography algorithms, software security, physical security, and security management and risk assessment. By the end of this course, you will be able to describe major information security issues and trends, and advise an individual seeking to protect his or her dat…

While CS403: Introduction to Modern Database Systems [1] covered many of the core concepts behind database management systems, there are many other considerations that should be addressed if you intend to pursue a career in this field.  This course will expand upon what you learned about SQL in CS403 and introduce various other advanced topics, including query optimization, concurrency, data warehouses, object-oriented extensions, and XML.  While CS403 introduced the basics of database management systems, the additional topics covered in this course will help you become more proficient in writing queries and will expand your knowledge base so that you have a better understanding of the field.  By the end of this course, you should have a solid grasp on data warehouses and XML, which will prove to be invaluable as you progress further in your Computer Science studies. [1] http://www.saylor.org/courses/cs403/…