Doctoral Seminar in Engineering Systems

Readings

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Present and future – The incorporation of social science and engineering into research and problem solving Guest: Joel Moses	Snow, C. P., ed. “The Rede Lecture (1959).” In The Two Cultures (Canto Classics). Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 1–51. ISBN: 9781107606142.
2	How do we know what we know? – The generation of cumulative knowledge in a field Guest: David Kaiser	Popper, K. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2002, pp. xi–xvii and 43–86. ISBN: 9780415285940. Feynman, R. P. The Character of Physical Law (Modern Library). Modern Library, 1994, pp. xix–xx and 3–55. ISBN: 9780679601272. Optional Readings Schwartz, Martin A. “The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research.” Journal of Cell Science 121, no. Pt11 (2008): 1771. Guest Readings Kaiser, David. “When Fields Collide.” Scientific American 296 (2007): 62–9. ———. “Turning Physicists into Quantum Mechanics.” Physics World (2007): 28–33. (PDF)
3	Modeling paradigms in engineering systems: Useful models and various modeling approaches Guest: Oliver de Weck	Buy at MIT Press Turkle, S., ed. Simulation and Its Discontents (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life). MIT Press, 2009, pp. 2–101. ISBN: 9780262012706. Only the following pages are REQUIRED READING: (pp. 3–14, 25–30, 43–45, 57–60, 63–64, and 70–84) Little, J. D. C. “Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus.” Management Science 50, no. 12 (2004): 1841–53 and a reprint of Little, J. D. C. “Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus.” Management Science 16, no. 8 (1970): B466–B485. Guest Readings Buy at MIT Press de Weck, O., D. Roos, and C. Magee. “Modeling and Analyzing Engineering Systems.” Chapter 5 in Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World. MIT Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780262016704. [Preview with Google Books] Optional Guest Readings Alfaris, A., A. Siddiqi, et al. “Hierarchical Decomposition and Multidomain Formulation for the Design of Complex Sustainable Systems.” Journal of Mechanical Design 132, no. 9 (2010).
4	System and enterprise architecture: Qualitative frameworks, quantitative models, and system representation Guest: Donna Rhodes	Maier, M. W. “Architecting Principles for Systems-of-Systems.” Systems Engineering 1, no. 4 (1998): 267–84. Herzlinger, R. E. “Let’s Put Consumers in Charge of Health Care.” Harvard Business Review 80, no. 7 (2002): 44–50, 52–5, and 123. Guest Readings Rhodes, Donna H., Adam M. Ross, and Deborah J. Nightingale. “Architecting the System of Systems Enterprise: Enabling Constructs and Methods from the Field of Engineering Systems.” SysCon2009 – IEEE International Systems Conference Pre-print Version Vancouver, Canada, March 23-26, 2009. (PDF)
5	Uncertainty and its analysis in engineering systems Guest: Mort Webster	Lempert, Robert, Steven Popper, et al. “Confronting Surprise.” Social Science Computer Review 20, no. 4 (2002): 420–40. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Prologue, chapters 16 and 17 in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House, 2007. ISBN: 9781400063512. Optional Readings Edwards, Paul N. “History of Climate Modeling.” WIREs Climate Change 2, no. 1 (2011): 128–39. Guest Readings Webster, Mort, Andrei P. Sokolov, et al. “Analysis of Climate Policy Targets Under Uncertainty.” Climatic Change 112, no. 3–4 (2012): 569–83.
6	Complexity in socio–technical systems Guest: Stuart Kauffman	Schelling, T. “Dynamic Models of Segregation.” Journal of Mathematical Sociology 1 (1971): 143–86. Ham, Frank van, and Jarke J. van Wijk. “Interactive Visualization of Small World Graphs.” (PDF) BBC. “Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four.” November 26, 2010. YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Guest Readings Kauffman, S. “Answering Descartes: Beyond Turing.” In The Once and Future Turing - Computing the World. Edited by S. Barry Cooper and Andrew Hodges. Cambridge University Press, 2012. (PDF) Optional Guest Readings Kauffman, Stuart. “The End of a Physics Worldview: Heraclitus and the Watershed of Life.” NPR, August 8, 2011.
7	Complexity and urban systems Guest: Chris Zegras	Innes, Judith E., and David E. Booher. “Metropolitan Development as a Complex System: A New Approach to Sustainability.” Economic Development Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1999): 141–56. Cascetta, Ennio, Francesca Pagliara, et al. “Governance of Urban Mobility: Complex Systems and Integrated Policies.” Advances in Complex Systems 10, no. 2 (2007): 339–54. Guest Readings Zegras, Chris, Jae Sueng Lee, et al. “By Community or Design? Age-Restricted Neighborhoods, Physical Design and Baby Boomers’ Local Travel Behavior in Suburban Boston, US.” Urban Studies (2012).
8	Network analysis in socio–technical systems Guest: Marta Gonzalez	Gastner, M. T., and M. E. J. Newman. “Shape and Efficiency in Spatial Distribution Networks.” Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment 2006, no. 1 (2004). Dodds, Peter Sheridan, Duncan J. Watts, et al. “Information Exchange and the Robustness of Organizational Networks.” PNAS 100, no. 21 (2003): 12516–21. Guest Readings González, M. C., C. A. Hidalgo, et al. “Understanding Individual Human Mobility Patterns.” Nature 453 (2008): 779–82.
9	Historical roots of engineering systems	No readings
10	Poverty as a problem in complex systems (and empirical study) Guest: Abhijit Banerjee	Travers, Jeffrey, and Stanley Milgram. “An Experimental Study of the Small World Problem.” Sociometry 32, no. 4 (1969): 425–43. Hall, S. S. Mapping the Next Millenium: The Discovery of New Geographies. Random House, 1992. ISBN: 9780394576350. Banerjee, Abhijit, and Lakshmi Iyer. “History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India.” The American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (2005): 1190–213. Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Daniel Keniston, and Nina Singh. “Making Police Reform Real: The Rajasthan Experiment.” MIT Working Paper 5933, 2010. (PDF - 1.1MB) Optional Readings Watts, D. J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. W. W. Norton and Co., 2003, pp. 37–42 and 130–61. ISBN: 9780393041422. Guest Readings Banerjee, A., and Esther Duflo. Chapters 1, 2, 10 and the “In Place of Sweeping Conclusions” section in Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. PublicAffairs, 2011. ISBN: 9781586487980.
11	Human dynamics and cognitive science in engineering systems Guest: Sandy Pentland	Buy at MIT Press Todd, Peter M. “Fast and Frugal Heuristics for Environmentally Bounded Minds.” Chapter 4 in Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. Edited by Gigerenzer and Selton. MIT Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780262072144. Reyna, Valerie S. “Meaning, Memory and Interpretation of Metaphors.” In Metaphor: Implications and Applications. Edited by J. Mio and A. Katz. Psychology Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780805816501. Guest Readings Pentland, Alex. “Society’s Nervous System: Building Effective Government, Energy, and Public Health Systems.” Computer 45, no. 1 (2012): 31–8. Optional Guest Readings Pentland, Alex. “To Signal is Human.” American Scientist 98, no. 3 (2010): 204–11.
12	Sustainability and engineering systems Guest: Noelle Selin	Hardin, Garrett. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, no. 3859 (1968): 1243–8. Banister, David. “The Sustainable Mobility Paradigm.” Transport Policy 15, no. 2 (2008): 73–80. Guest Readings Selin, Noelle E. “Science and Strategies to Reduce Mercury Risks: A Critical Review.” Journal of Environmental Monitoring 13, no. 9 (2011): 2389–99.
13	Engineering design and design of complex socio–technical systems Guest: Richard de Neufville	Guest Readings Buy at MIT Press de Neufville, Richard, and Stefan Scholtes. Flexibility in Engineering Design (Engineering Systems). MIT Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780262016230. [Preview with Google Books]
14	Policy design/course wrap–up	No readings