Annual CEE research showcase highlights diversity of research across department

In the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), researchers are constantly looking for new ways to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. Every year, the department hosts CEE Research Speed Dating Day to encourage community members to think outside the box and to draw inspiration from the research of their peers.

From developing low-cost sulfur dioxide sensors to creating environmentally friendly human-made materials, the seventh annual event showcased the recent findings and ongoing projects of 50 community members. Undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, research scientists, and faculty members shared their research through talks and electronic poster sessions.

Markus J. Buehler, the McAfee Professor of Engineering and head of CEE, welcomed the community to the event. “The event started seven years ago as an idea by a group of faculty who realized the untapped potential of collaboration across the department, and has been wildly successful. Every year it brings together the community; and what is special is that we have presentations from undergraduate students including freshmen, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty,” Buehler said. “It’s a great way to learn about the department, to get inspired, and to consider new ideas or research you haven’t thought about because you heard about a new idea or tool or method.”

Serguei Saavedra and Tal Cohen, assistant professors of CEE, were the faculty organizers of the 2017 CEE Research Speed Dating Day. Cohen and Saavedra added a judging element with prizes this year, incorporating a competitive element to the event. Throughout the afternoon, faculty judges gave scores for each presentation and poster, and the winners were announced at the end of the night.

“This event is a clear celebration of the rich diversity of research taking place in CEE,” Saavedra said. 

Talks demonstrate diversity of CEE research

CEE research presented at the event ranged from atmospheric chemistry and structural design to transportation and biological communities; but this represents only a sample of the many different types of questions explored in civil and environmental engineering. CEE Research Speed Dating Day was established to provide inspiration and a new perspective that could fuel others' projects. By giving insight into the creative ways researchers approach and solve complex problems, it opens doors for other CEE researchers to consider how they could take similar approaches to their own work.

The presentation sessions at Research Speed Dating Day demonstrated how current research from across the department is addressing and solving major issues around the world, and how the researchers plan to continue this work in the future.

Associate professor of CEE Jesse Kroll kicked off the research presentations with his presentation on low-cost sensing for air-quality measurements. Although air quality has drastically improved over the years with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, air pollution is still a problem. “Air pollution is the single largest environmental risk factor for illness and premature death. The big issue is fine particulate matter [PM]. Outdoor PM pollution accounts for more than 3 million premature deaths per year, and it’s more than double that if you include indoor pollution as well,” he said.

Kroll pointed out that in the greater Boston area, there are only four air quality monitors. Kroll, graduate student David Hagan, associate department head Professor Colette Heald, and undergraduate students that enroll in 1.091 (Traveling Research Environmental eXperiences: fieldwork) have constructed and deployed low-cost sensors that agree well with official government data in Hawaii. These sensors are not only accurate, but they are much more affordable than the larger monitors. Kroll plans to scale-up the research from Hawaii and study urban areas such as Delhi.

Caitlin Mueller, assistant professor of CEE and architecture, gave another perspective of the research that CEE faculty members conduct through her presentation on the design and construction of creative structures. Mueller defined creative structures as the combination of ideas from geometry and form with structural engineering. She explained that “the two disciplines related to creative structures are often isolated,” but she studies how to discover new creative structures with her engineering and architecture background. One aspect Mueller and her research team considers when working on creative structures is the environmental impact of the building, from the energy needed to transport materials for its construction to the environmental impact of the building’s use over time.

Judy “Qingjun” Yang, a graduate student in Professor Heidi Nepf’s lab, shared insight into the mysterious motion of sand. Yang described the value of understanding sediment movement by arguing both that “sand is a great storyteller,” and forms coastlines, but that sand is also a “trouble-maker,” such as in situations where houses are destroyed by coastal erosion. Yang and uses water flumes to test the turbulent kinetic energy for sediment transport, and uses calculated formulas to understand the motion of sand. Looking towards the future, Yang said “I hope to use turbulent kinetic energy models to design better vegetation restoration plains.” 

To wrap up the research aspect of the night, Cohen presented on solid mechanics. She began her talk by identifying the trend towards soft materials. “Everything around us is becoming softer. We want our cell phones to be flexible, we wish that our robots would handle delicate things, and maybe we can wear our electronics. Essentially, we’re pushing and pulling on materials in ways we weren’t always able and we’re observing phenomena we’ve never observed before,” she said. Cohen’s group looks specifically at how materials respond under dynamic loading conditions, how various material instabilities form and how materials grow. “In the future what I hope my group will be doing is to start to look at the intersections between those three thrusts; essentially trying to understand how maybe growth can induce instability, how materials respond under extreme dynamic loading conditions, and how growing materials behave when they are subjected to extreme conditions,” Cohen said.

Electronic poster session allows more research spotlights

The research presentations were separated by two short electronic poster sessions, allowing more community members than ever before to participate in this year’s Research Speed Dating Day.

E-posters are an environmentally friendly alternative to version of a standard research poster, and they allowed the presenters to have additional graphs and data available to further explain their research.

Alexa Jaeger, a junior in CEE and earth, ptmospheric, and planetary Sciences (EAPS), and Amber VanHemel, a sophomore in civil and environmental engineering, presented a poster from data they collected during Traveling Research Environmental eXperiences over Independent Activates Period (IAP). Urged to apply to Research Speed Dating by CEE Assistant Professor Ben Kocar, the pair presented on “UAVs in Precision Agriculture and Low-Cost SO2 Sensors,” also the topic of research in 1.092 (Traveling Research Environmental eXperience (TREX): Fieldwork Analysis and Communication) taught by Kocar and Kroll.    

“The research has implications for human health, food security, and reducing agriculture-related waste and environmental problems. Obviously, these are all issues that most people care about. It is exciting to be doing research that has a very tangible and relevant goal,” Jaeger said. “We are both really excited about the work we did on TREX and want to tell people about it.”

Freshmen invited to share their IAP research

A group of freshmen also attended the event to share the results of their mini-UROP research during the poster session.

The mini-UROP program is an abbreviated version of the MIT-wide Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). A group of 20 freshmen interested in learning about CEE and in getting hands-on experience working in labs enrolled in the CEE mini-UROP class over IAP, and were placed into labs based on their interests.

The mini-UROP participants and their mentors worked closely together over IAP to conduct research, and on Feb. 3, the mini-UROP students presented their research to their peers and to the CEE community. From there, Cohen personally invited select mini-UROP students to present their findings at Research Speed Dating.

Diana Nguyen was one student invited. She completed a mini-UROP with CEE graduate student Hayley Gadol in Kocar’s lab. Nguyen extended her research experience beyond IAP into a regular UROP this semester, where she continues to work with Gadol. Nguyen presented a poster on “Microbial Methanogenesis and Sulfate Reduction” at Research Speed Dating.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to gain experience in presenting research and to also network with other researchers. My mentor also highly recommended that I try it out,” Nguyen said.

A CEE tradition

Every year, Research Speed Dating Day concludes with a dinner reception to encourage community members to network and discuss the research presented earlier in the event. During the reception, Cohen and Saavedra also highlighted presentations and posters that stood out during CEE Research Speed Dating Day. Cohen and Saavedra presented winners of the best presentation, the winners of best undergraduate poster and the best overall poster from each of the two poster sessions. The winners were evaluated by faculty judges and received a certificate and a $250 prize.  

Graduate student Yongji Wang of the Bourouiba group was presented with the award for best talk for his presentation on drop fragmentation. The winners of the undergraduate poster session were Daly Wettermark and Xin “Florence” Lo. Graduate student Michael Chen of Kocar’s lab won best poster in the first poster session for his presentation of “Pore-scale biogeochemistry: Microfluidic devices and spectroscopic tools.” Joanna Moody, a graduate student in the Regional Transportation Planning and High-Speed Rail Research Group, won the second poster session with her presentation on “High-Speed Rail Market Selection Process for East Japan Railway Company.”

“With a total of 50 presentations, talks and e-posters combined, the success of this event is a result of an orchestrated effort across the department. It showcased the diverse set of big engineering challenges that our researchers are dealing with while emphasizing the advantages of working together to solve them,” Cohen said.

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The Committee on Animal Care solicits feedback

The Committee on Animal Care (CAC) and the vice president for research welcome any information which would aid our efforts to assure the humane care of research animals used at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Established to ensure that MIT researchers working with animals comply with federal, state, local and institutional regulations on animal care, the CAC inspects animals, animal facilities, and laboratories, and reviews all research and teaching exercises that involve animals before experiments are performed.

If you have concerns about animal welfare, please contact the Committee on Animal Care (CAC) by calling 617-324-6892, or send your concern in writing to the CAC Office (Room 16-408), or email us at cacpo@mit.edu. The issue will be forwarded to the Chair of the CAC and the Attending Veterinarian.

You may also contact any of the following:

• Vice president for research: 617-253-3206, mtz@mit.edu
• Director of the Division of Comparative Medicine: 617-253-1735, jgfox@mit.edu
• CAC chair: 617-253-9436, opra@med.mit.edu
• Attending veterinarian: 617-253-9425, mwhary@mit.edu

All concerns about animal welfare will remain confidential; the identity of individuals who contact the CAC with concerns will be treated as confidential, and individuals will be protected against reprisal and discrimination consistent with MIT policies. The Committee on Animal Care will report its findings and actions to correct the issue to the vice president for research, the director of comparative medicine, the individual who reported the concern (if not reported anonymously), and oversight agencies as applicable.

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Stretching the boundaries of neural implants

Implantable fibers have been an enormous boon to brain research, allowing scientists to stimulate specific targets in the brain and monitor electrical responses. But similar studies in the nerves of the spinal cord, which might ultimately lead to treatments to alleviate spinal cord injuries, have been more difficult to carry out. That’s because the spine flexes and stretches as the body moves, and the relatively stiff, brittle fibers used today could damage the delicate spinal cord tissue.

Now, researchers have developed a rubber-like fiber that can flex and stretch while simultaneously delivering both optical impulses, for optoelectronic stimulation, and electrical connections, for stimulation and monitoring. The new fibers are described in a paper in the journal Science Advances, by MIT graduate students Chi (Alice) Lu and Seongjun Park, Professor Polina Anikeeva, and eight others at MIT, the University of Washington, and Oxford University.

“I wanted to create a multimodal interface with mechanical properties compatible with tissues, for neural stimulation and recording,” as a tool for better understanding spinal cord functions, says Lu. But it was essential for the device to be stretchable, because “the spinal cord is not only bending but also stretching during movement.” The obvious choice would be some kind of elastomer, a rubber-like compound, but most of these materials are not adaptable to the process of fiber drawing, which turns a relatively large bundle of materials into a thread that can be narrower than a hair.

The spinal cord “undergoes stretches of about 12 percent during normal movement,” says Anikeeva, who is the Class of 1942 Career Development Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “You don’t even need to get into a ‘downward dog’ [yoga position] to have such changes.” So finding a material that can match that degree of stretchiness could potentially make a big difference to research. “The goal was to mimic the stretchiness and softness and flexibility of the spinal cord,” she says. “You can match the stretchiness with a rubber. But drawing rubber is difficult — most of them just melt,” she says.

“Eventually, we’d like to be able to use something like this to combat spinal cord injury. But first, we have to have biocompatibility and to be able to withstand the stresses in the spinal cord without causing any damage,” she says.

The fibers are not only stretchable but also very flexible. “They’re so floppy, you could use them to do sutures, and do light delivery at the same time,” professor Polina Anikeeva says. (Video: Chi (Alice) Lu and Seongjun Park)

The team combined a newly developed transparent elastomer, which could act as a waveguide for optical signals, and a coating formed of a mesh of silver nanowires, producing a conductive layer for the electrical signals. To process the transparent elastomer, the material was embedded in a polymer cladding that enabled it to be drawn into a fiber that proved to be highly stretchable as well as flexible, Lu says. The cladding is dissolved away after the drawing process.

After the entire fabrication process, what’s left is the transparent fiber with electrically conductive, stretchy nanowire coatings. “It’s really just a piece of rubber, but conductive,” Anikeeva says. The fiber can stretch by at least 20 to 30 percent without affecting its properties, she says.

The fibers are not only stretchable but also very flexible. “They’re so floppy, you could use them to do sutures and deliver light  at the same time,” she says.

“We’re the first to develop something that enables simultaneous electrical recording and optical stimulation in the spinal cords of freely moving mice,” Lu says. “So we hope our work opens up new avenues for neuroscience research.” Scientists doing research on spinal cord injuries or disease usually must use larger animals in their studies, because the larger nerve fibers can withstand the more rigid wires used for stimulus and recording. While mice are generally much easier to study and available in many genetically modified strains, there was previously no technology that allowed them to be used for this type of research, she says.

“There are many different types of cells in the spinal cord, and we don’t know how the different types respond to recovery, or lack of recovery, after an injury,” she says. These new fibers, the researchers hope, could help to fill in some of those blanks.

The team included Alexander Derry, Chong Hou, Siyuan Rao, Jeewoo Kang, and professor Yoel Fink at MIT; Tom Richner and professor Chet Mortiz at the University of Washington; and Imogen Brown at Oxford University. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, and the U.S. Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT.

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With peer institutions, MIT files amicus brief against revised travel ban

MIT and 30 other colleges and universities today filed an amicus brief in the federal appeals court for the Fourth Circuit, arguing that President Trump’s latest executive order, like its predecessor, threatens the universities’ ability to fulfill their educational missions by attracting the most talented individuals from around the world.

This is the third “friend of the court” brief MIT has filed in lawsuits concerning the executive orders restricting travel to the United States for nationals from parts of the Middle East and Africa. The first brief was filed with the federal court in Boston on Feb. 3, and the second was filed with the federal court in the eastern district of New York on Feb. 13.

The executive order issued by the president on March 6, suspends citizens of six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — from entering the U.S. for a period of 90 days. Although the order excludes certain visa-holders, it would bar entry of individuals who seek the categories of visas most commonly relied upon by the universities’ international students, faculty, staff, and scholars.

In their amicus brief, the universities describe how the executive order inflicts significant burdens on their students, faculty, and scholars; impedes the universities’ ability to fulfill their educational missions; and will result in harm to the U.S. economy if American universities cannot attract the best talent to their campuses to study and work.

The brief also argues that the executive order will impede successful academic collaboration in the United States, and that it undercuts efforts to foster a culture of diversity, inclusion, and tolerance, by signaling, from the highest levels of government, that discrimination is not only acceptable but appropriate. 

“Amici [the universities] are experiencing the Order’s costs absent any evidence that all or even an appreciable number of nationals from these six countries — all of whom already undergo significant vetting by the government before being permitted to study or work here — pose any threat to the safety or security of the United States or amici’s campuses,” the brief states.

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United in learning

The political leaders of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates have an indefatigable belief in the promise of innovation. So when this future-focused city decided they needed help building their own culture of innovation, they came straight to MIT.

“We are shifting the mindset of our government employees toward how to think outside of the box,” says Najwan Al Midfa from the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and Future, which enacts the strategy and vision of the UAE. “Honestly, we see that as the MIT way of thinking.”

Al Midfa, a special projects manager for the Mohammed Bin Rashid Center for Government Innovation, credits a recent series of two-day innovation workshops led by MIT faculty with influencing high-profile attendees, including cabinet ministers, chief innovation officers, undersecretaries, and others. “Officials are saying they want to spread MIT’s culture within their entities,” says Al Midfa. Such an effort advances the UAE’s broader push for creative solutions to urgent challenges involving energy and environment.

The workshops cultivated a spirit of innovation on many levels, says Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education. The UAE Prime Minister’s Office, which extended the invitation, also suggested participants work together across traditional hierarchy and gender barriers, he says. “The UAE government knows crossing such boundaries will allow for more innovative results,” says Pant. “They wanted to use the MIT reputation — its clout — to make that kind of collaboration easier.”

MIT faculty traveled to Dubai to teach forms of innovative thinking, not necessarily address cultural issues, Pant adds. The workshops involved a cross-section of people, male and female, exchanging ideas and working jointly on projects. “The UAE is being very progressive,” says Pant, who teaches intercultural communications to MIT engineering students and other community members. “You’ve got tremendous hierarchy across the Middle East, especially in the government. The UAE is saying, “Well, we’re going to be different.”

Connecting minds

Spreading a culture of innovation is paramount in Dubai; the UAE intends to become one of the most innovative governments in the world. Initiatives include the Dubai 2021 Plan, an ambitious project aimed to raise Dubai’s profile as a top international city for business, culture, tourism, and government, as well as to reinforce its position as a pivotal hub in the global economy and a hotbed for innovation.

Dubai also won its bid to host the World Expo in 2020 with a theme of "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future" to recognize the collaboration needed across cultures, nations, and regions in order to generate sustainable solutions to global challenges. It has attracted top international startups to tackle critical problems, and leads a nationwide event — UAE Innovation Week — that celebrates innovation as an everyday activity to be embraced by men and women in every segment of society.

“I doubt there are many countries where leaders are as well-informed or change-oriented,” says Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning at MIT. In 2016, he and Pant signed the agreement with the UAE that launched the MIT innovation series in Dubai.

Sarma, who also leads the Office of Digital Learning at MIT and is a professor of mechanical engineering, led the first workshop Radical Innovation. He says government leaders impressed him as progressive, knowledgeable, and engaged. Men and women discussed concepts creatively, applied them to real examples, and absorbed how to use modern organizational and experimental principles.

Next in the series, Federico Casalegno, associate professor of the practice and founder and director of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab, focused on design thinking. Government officials worked together on teams and created disruptive ideas with new media and cutting-edge technologies, he says. One team designed a distributed-connected system that leveraged the internet of things and artificial intelligence to enable working mothers to balance dual responsibilities of children and career. Another created a digital system with distributed sensors to optimize renewable energy production and consumption, he says.

“We had a creative-thinking environment. Everyone was active. Women, in particular, were able to bring their own know-how and international experience into the design thinking process,” says Casalegno. “I think the mix of people within the teams was one of the successful parts of it.”

The public good

MIT faculty member David Niño led a final workshop on the challenges involved in leading strategic innovations. Like his colleagues, Nino was focused on his subject area — and not on cross-gender collaboration. It happened anyway.

“One of the senior female leaders approached me the first day and said: “Are you going to mix us together for group exercises? The men and the women?” says Niño, senior lecturer in the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program.

In the seminars, he noticed, women sat on one side of the conference room, and men on the other. The dress was traditional with women wearing long black robes with a hijab and men in long white robes with headscarves. “I was planning to mix everyone together as I usually do,” Niño told the woman. “Is that violating a cultural norm?” he asked. No, she said, it would be welcome.

“The discussion was very rich and engaging to begin with, and even more so when they moved into mixed groups to work on projects,” Niño says. In one instance, participants role-played a scenario in which a public official with new data on city pollution levels must determine potential causes and develop creative solutions to this problem. One group came up with a set of solutions, and the other group critiqued them. “The energy in the room was amazing. They really came alive,” he says.

While MIT offers expertise in innovation, the extended relationship will enable learning to go both ways, says Niño. In fact, he learned during his workshop that a climate summit with top UAE leaders was happening in the same building — and they were approaching an air pollution issue with the same collaborative and innovative approach he was currently teaching. 

“As global citizens, we all have a shared stake in developing creative solutions to problems such as climate change, and I would love to see us mutually share our experiences and learn from one another.” 

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Study: NIH funding generates large numbers of private-sector patents

Research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contribute to a significant number of private-sector patents in biomedicine, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT professor.

The study, published today in the journal Science, examines 27 years of data and finds that 31 percent of NIH grants, which are publicly funded, produce articles that are later cited by patents in the biomedical sector.

“The impact on the private sector is a lot more important in magnitude than what we might have thought before,” says Pierre Azoulay, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who is one of the authors of the paper.

After reviewing over 365,000 grants — making this a uniquely large study — the research also finds that over 8 percent of NIH grants generate a patent directly.

Intriguingly, the researchers also find no significant difference between “basic” or “applied” research grants in terms of the frequency with which those projects helped generate patents; both kinds of research spill over into productive private-sector uses.

“If you thought the NIH exists in an ivory tower, you're wrong,” Azoulay says. “They are the nexus of knowledge that really unifies two worlds.”

The paper, “The Applied Value of Public Investments in Biomedical Research,” is co-authored by Azoulay, who is the International Programs Professor of Management at MIT Sloan; Danielle Li PhD ’12, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School; and Bhaven Sampat, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Decades of grants

The NIH, which has its main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, encompasses multiple research institutes and is the world’s biggest source of public funding for biomedical research, dispersing about $32 billion annually in grants.

To conduct the study, the scholars examined 365,380 NIH grants funded between 1980 and 2007 — nearly every NIH grant awarded for decades. Exactly 30,829 were the direct basis for patents; 17,093 of those were so-called “Bayh-Dole” patents issued to universities and hospitals, something federal legislation made possible starting in 1980.

Of the NIH grants, 112,408 were additionally cited in a total of 81,462 private-sector patents.

And as the authors put it in the new paper, even these NIH-backed research projects that are indirectly cited in later patents “demonstrate the additional reach that publicly funded science can have by building a foundation for private-sector R&D.”

Azoulay, an economist who studies the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, says the bottom-line figures in the study — the 31 percent and 8 percent of NIH grants that contribute to and more directly generate patents — strike him as being significantly large because of the broad scope of research the NIH supports.

“There is a lot of research we wouldn't necessarily expect to be relied upon in a patent,” Azoulay explains.

He also noted that such research can be characterized as either “basic” or “applied”; the researchers found little difference in the long-term patent-creating productivity of those categories.

For instance, some research projects can be considered more directly “disease-oriented” than others, but even by this yardstick, the frequency of patent generation does not vary greatly. About 35 percent of “disease-oriented” NIH grants led to patents, compared to 30 percent otherwise.

Overall, Azoulay says, the flow of knowledge from NIH research projects to the commercial market seems clear.

“Grants produce papers, and papers are cited by patents used by pharmaceutical firms,” says Azoulay. “It's hard to think of an innovation [in biomedicine] that doesn't have a patent.”

Continuing research

The current project is one of multiple related studies that Azoulay and his colleagues — including Li, who will jon the MIT faculty in July 2017 — have conducted on the impact of publicly funded science.

A 2015 working paper released by Azoulay, Li, Sampat, and Joshua Graff Zivin, a professor at the University of California at San Diego, estimated that every $1 of public NIH funding yielded between $1.5 and $2 in private-sector pharmaceutical drug sales. That study is still undergoing peer review.

The current research was conducted partly with the support of the National Science Foundation’s Science of Science and Innovation Policy program (SciSIP).

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3Q: J. Phillip Thompson on revitalizing Central Brooklyn

In early March, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced an ambitious $1.4 billion state plan to revitalize Central Brooklyn — a zone that experiences chronically high rates of unemployment, obesity, and murder. Called “Vital Brooklyn,” the initiative includes a $700 million investment in health care. J. Phillip Thompson, associate professor of urban studies and planning at MIT, was instrumental in shaping this comprehensive approach to health. An urban planner and political scientist who focuses on race, community development, and health, Thompson worked for New York’s Mayor David Dinkins in the early 1990s and has long worked with labor unions and community groups.   

Q: How did you become involved in the Vital Brooklyn project?

A: This initiative started in response to a proposal to close the Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn in 2015. The hospital workers’ union, Local 1199 (SEIU), and the New York State Nurses Association — along with an array of community organizations, churches, and elected officials — contacted me to put together a community health needs study and to help determine whether it made sense to close that hospital. I think they reached out to me because of my research interests and connection with MIT, and because I’d worked both with Brooklyn community groups and for the New York City government. I think they wanted “experts” they could trust to give them an opinion based on data analysis — who would be straight with them whether the news was good or bad.

Mariana Arcaya, now an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), and about a dozen students from DUSP also participated in various stages of the research. From analyzing data, speaking with health experts, and surveying the various community groups, we saw that not only was there still a need for a hospital in the community, but that the hospital wasn’t delivering the services that this particular community needed most. For the short term, they needed better cardiovascular and ob/gyn departments. But the larger picture that emerged showed that this was a very sick community. And that most of its illnesses were chronic diseases that can be attributed to poverty and unemployment: asthma caused by mold in substandard housing; obesity due to poor food and fear of going to parks and public spaces for exercise because of violence from the drug trade; and all the ailments that stem from the stress of unemployment.

Q: Can a hospital respond to those conditions?

A: Not on its own. These hospitals all lose money. Typically, when a hospital is losing money, they try to make up the difference by doing things such as performing more heart surgeries, because Medicaid reimburses these surgeries at an advantageous rate. But this makes sense only if you look at each hospital individually. Medicaid is a giant insurance program and the state is the insurer. And it’s not in the state’s interest — or good for its fiscal bottom line — to have more heart surgeries. What’s good for their bottom line is to keep people out of hospitals and out of emergency rooms.

We believe that the only way we can improve community health — and save the state some money — is to build a primary care network throughout the community where people can see a doctor or nurse on a regular basis and get a prescription for medication for high blood pressure or diabetes. It is equally important to aggressively go after the conditions that are responsible for the community’s poor health. We need a comprehensive integrated plan to address social problems. You can’t improve public health unless you consider housing, for example. And you can’t improve housing without looking at unemployment. And you can’t reduce unemployment without looking at the local economy and schools.

It is equally essential that we empower the community to control the process of implementation. That means instead of having contractors and laborers from outside the community build the housing, you hire workers from the community. You establish training and educational support so people can be trained rapidly and become qualified for construction jobs and for work in the community health clinics. We also have to learn to identify underutilized assets in these communities and stop looking at them simply as poor communities. Hospitals and other industries in these communities buy billions of dollars in goods and services from all over the world. Why not have them buy some of them from local vendors? Who does your laundry? Who grows your food? Later, we can start to look at creating more complex local businesses like manufacturing.

Q: And public safety? How does the plan promote that?

A: If you want to solve the problem of fear, of people being afraid of going to the park to exercise, you need to address the issue of felons. This is one of the most difficult issues in the community. What do you do with these people who no one wants to hire? How do you keep them from committing crimes, terrorizing the neighborhood? How do you keep them from returning to prison? In Cleveland, University Hospitals created an industrial laundry, a worker-owned business that deliberately hires ex-felons. This is a way to improve the conditions in communities beset with crime. We believe this idea is replicable in Brooklyn. And we’ve already been contacted on this idea by hospitals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Hartford, Connecticut. Sometimes when you do the right thing, you can improve conditions in a community and save the state money. We believe it’s possible to be fiscally conservative, politically radical, and morally correct, all at the same time.

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KSA meeting focuses on digital globalization, emerging technologies

With famed global affairs and technology writer Thomas Friedman as the keynote speaker, the ninth annual Kendall Square Association (KSA) meeting put a focus on digital globalization, emerging technologies, and navigating today’s uncertain political climate — as well as Kendall Square’s role as burgeoning innovation hub.

The KSA is a nonprofit organization of 160 industry and academic partners in and around Kendall Square — including Google, Microsoft, the Cambridge Innovation Center, and MIT — that promotes the vibrancy of the district. Each year, the KSA holds a meeting to elect new board members, provide updates on projects, and host guest speakers who share insights on technology, business, education, and other fields.

Welcoming around 350 attendees to the Boston Marriot Cambridge yesterday, Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons expressed concerns about the city’s adjustment to a new political landscape. Now, more than in recent years, she said, promoting diversity and scientific innovation has become increasingly important.

But Simmons said she feels “heartened” at the growing innovation and diversity in Kendall Square, and at KSA’s ability to bring local members of government, academia, and businesses together to foster a vibrant ecosystem in Kendall Square. “Together, we will weather this storm,” Simmons said.

KSA President Sarah Gallop, co-director of the MIT Office of Government and Community Relations, updated the community on popular KSA projects, including information kiosks and “little free libraries” — trading posts where people can exchange books. She said the KSA is this year focusing on several strategic priorities in Kendall Square: advancing innovation, advocating for better transportation, enhancing the district’s public environment, and growing collaborations. “Kendall Square has many of those foundations, but there’s a lot of work to be done,” Gallop said.

In his talk, Friedman, author of the international bestseller “The World is Flat” and a foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, discussed how the rise of digital globalization — which refers to worldwide flows of data and information, instead of goods — and rapidly accelerating technologies have impacted society. Many key points came from his new book, “Thank you for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations.”

Friedman said today’s digital globalization hinges on the year 2007, when Facebook and Twitter went global, the Internet hit 1 billion users, and more people sent texts than made phone calls. That year also saw the launch of the iPhone, the Amazon Kindle, Airbnb, GitHub, the Android operating system, and Hadoop, the first platform to enable big-data processing. Among the most important innovations, he said, was cloud computing, which gives incredible power to businesses and individuals.

“What happened in 2007 was the release of energy into the hands of people and machines, the likes of which we have never seen before,” Friedman said. The year “may be understood in time as the single greatest technological inflection point since Gutenberg invented the printing press.”

Nearly overnight, he said, these technologies changed several aspects of society — including the workplace, ethics, communities, and global politics — and the power of the individual. “What one person can do now as a maker or breaker is unlike anything we’ve seen,” he said. “We have a president who can now tweet in his pajamas directly to hundreds of millions of people around the world. But what’s really amazing is that the head of ISIS can do the exact same thing.”

For workplaces, Friedman said the pace of technological change is now “simply outstripping the ability of our institutions and communities and many individuals to adapt.” A solution, Friedman said, lies in “learning faster and governing smarter.” As examples, Friedman noted companies giving assistive technologies to workers, launching education websites, and developing algorithms that can aid in job placement.

Some companies are also offering employee training in computer science and other skills, he said. “The most important question you can ask your kids these days is not what you want to be when you grow up, but how you want to be when you grow up,” he said. “Do you have a mindset of lifelong learning? If you have that you’ll be fine in a world that’s going to be spinning off jobs you can’t even imagine.”

Such concepts are also driven by the innovative companies and organizations in Kendall Square, Friedman said. “That’s what Kendall Square is all about,” he said. “How do you get people to learn faster and govern smarter … so more people can take advantage of where we are today in terms of technology?”

As for ethics and community, Friedman said following the “Golden Rule” — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — is more applicable than ever in a world where one person can do large-scale damage via Twitter, hacking, or other means. “We’re in a realm where we’re all connected and no one is in charge,” Friedman said.  

In a closing sentiment, Friedman said that to flourish in an age of rapid technological acceleration, innovation hubs such as Kendall Square must adopt the characteristics that helped “Mother Nature” survive for billions of years — be resilient, adaptable, stable, and diverse. “The communities, the Kendall Squares, that most closely [embrace] Mother Nature’s strategies ... are the ones that will thrive in the age of acceleration.”

MIT President L. Rafael Reif was also on hand to offer welcoming remarks, calling the present day an “exciting time in Kendall Square, with unprecedented opportunities before us.” His talk focused on KSA and MIT’s roles in helping shape the district.

In 1980, when Reif first came to study at MIT, Kendall Square was an industrial wasteland, he said. With the help of KSA, “that little rough patch has grown into a global hub for biotech, research, and innovation.” Today, Kendall Square — which Reif called “the most innovative square mile in the world” — is home to hundreds of startups and the research arms of many leading pharmaceutical companies.

Reif said MIT is taking steps to make Kendall Square “an even more dynamic and inspiring place to eat, work, and play … further demonstrating its deep commitment to this one-of-a-kind ecosystem.”

Reif noted MIT’s recent investment in redeveloping the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, with aims of turning the federally owned 14-acre parcel in Kendall Square into a more vibrant, mixed-use site that will benefit the Institute’s mission and the Cambridge community.

The redevelopment represents an enormous responsibility, Reif told the crowd of representatives from the KSA and roughly 100 companies and organizations in Kendall Square and beyond. “In the months and years ahead,” he said, “we look forward to working with all of you, and with the community more broadly, to shape the future of the Volpe site, a future that we believe is extremely bright.”

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2nny0qq

LOS MÁS INFLUYENTES DE LA INGENIERÍA

La ingeniería nos ha acompañado a lo largo de los siglos y nos hemos encontrado con hombres de excepción que marcaron un antes y un después como Leonardo da Vinci, Arthur Casagrande, Nikola Tesla, Robert Stephenson, Federico Villareal, Robert Manning, Karl Terzagui ,.....

Pero hoy en día vivimos en la era digital donde es de vital importancia conectar con las personas a través de internet para que puedan encontrarnos y difundir nuestro mensaje.

Por eso, la influencia, relevancia, popularidad, reputación… son términos aplicados a las redes sociales que persiguen definir algo realmente complicado...

¿Quién es un influyente ?

Recientemente hemos superado un Klout Score de 65 puntos, pero para la mayoría de los que estéis leyendo esto no sabrá que significa. Por eso, os lo explicamos por encima:

Klout mide la influencia entre un rango de 1 a 100, tomando como base la capacidad de un individuo de provocar una reacción en las redes sociales tomando datos de Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Youtube, Blogger, WordPress, Instagram,... Además de ponderar más de 400 variables distintas como la influencia de la red, el contenido creado, cómo interactúan con ese contenido, cómo interacciona el usuario con otros usuarios, el alcance,...

Para que os hagáis una idea, estar por encima de 60 representa el 5% de los usuarios totales de Klout y, normalmente, eres considerado como un Influencer al superar esta barrera.

"Descubre los más influyentes de la ingeniería en España y los 10 blogs más interesantes"

CLICKEALO

Por eso he realizado una infografía de los TOP TEN MÁS INFLUENYENTES DE LA INGENIERÍA EN ESPAÑA según el ranking de topinfluencers que se basa en Klout (prometo que haré uno Internacional):

Pero el mundo de la ingeniería es tan extensa que resulta laborioso conocer los últimos proyectos, novedades, noticias, o tendencias. Por eso, también hemos querido recopilar  los 10 blogs de ingeniería o páginas webs más interesantes por trayectoria, contenido o reputación para que lo podáis guardar en vuestro marcador de favoritos:

Estructurando. 

El blog de José Antonio Agudelo y David Boixader sobre ingeniería estructural donde nos acercan noticias de actualidad, opiniones y post centrado especialmente en las estructuras; aunque también podrás encontrar cursos profesionales, webs útiles,etc.
WEB | estructurando.net

Ingeniería en la red

Un Blog de Ingeniería Civil & Prontuario donde aporta la actualidad de software de ingeniería, trae interesantes vídeos, opiniones y noticias del sector. 

WEB | ingenieriaenlared.wordpress.com

El blog de Victor Yepes

Desde la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia el Doctor Ingeniero de Caminos y profesor Víctor Yepes nos trae su blog personal donde nos habla y opina sobre diversos temas relacionados con el mundo de la ingeniería civil apoyado desde su amplia experiencia profesional.

WEB | victoryepes.blogs.upv.es

Iaguas

Es una web especializada en el sector del agua. Con información actualizada, noticias, eventos y licitaciones sobre ingeniería. También cuenta con una plataforma para profesionales, blogueros,etc. para que puedan compartir sus noticias o temas de interés.

WEB | iagua.es

Civilgeeks

Este blog peruano de John J. Rojas, profesional en Ingeniería Civil, nos trae interesante información sobre libros, programas, eventos, concursos y artículos recopilados alrededor del mundo. Todo sobre lo que necesitas saber el rubro en el que te desenvuelves.
WEB | civilgeeks.com

Obrasweb

Se trata de una revista digital  de México enfocado al sector latino-americano donde se centra en 4 canales principales como son la arquitectura, construcción, interiorismo e inmobiliario.
WEB | obrasweb.mx

aggregatte

Es considerada como la primera red profesional del mundo de la construcción, energía y medioambiente. No es exáctamente un blog en sí su plataforma sino más bien un microblogging o nanoblogging. Permitiendo a sus usuarios enviar y publicar mensajes breves tanto de noticias, artículos, imágenes o vídeos que luego serán difundido según criterio en sus redes sociales.

WEB | aggregatte.com

Departament of Civil & Enviromental Engineering MIT

El Massachusetts Institute of Technology es considerado una de las mejores universidad del mundo donde se imparten clases de ingeniería civil desde 1985. Aquí intentan comprender el mundo, inventar y dirigir con el diseño creativo pudiendo encontrar interesantes artículos de ingeniería, ciencia, investigación,etc.

WEB | cee.mit.edu/blog

Structurae

Esta web se creo en 1998 por el ingeniero de puentes Nicolas Janberg y te podrás encontrar miles de estructuras de todo el mundo, con información técnica detallada, fotografías y enlaces en cada una de las estructuras reseñadas. Está disponible en inglés, francés y alemán.

WEB | structurae.net

Arquitectura Viva

Este último blog o más bien revista en papel, dio el salto al mundo digital hace unos años convirtiéndose en un referente en el mundo de la arquitectura y construcción donde nos traen interesantes noticias, reportajes y artículos monográficos.
WEB | arquitecturaviva.com

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With Coffee Cookie, MIT duo takes product from idea to launch

With graduation on the horizon, MIT students Gabe Alba and Victoria Gregory have work to do. They have a promising idea, a series of prototypes, and if all goes according to plan, a trendy product that will satisfy a coffee drinker's desire.

Dreamed up two months ago, their device is the Coffee Cookie — a lightweight, circular object that attaches to the bottom of disposable coffee cups. It looks like a sea-blue casino chip but in fact is a battery-operated drink warmer that heats up to 90 degrees Celsius.

Both fourth-year mechanical engineering students, Alba and Gregory conceived of the drink warmer during a class exercise in 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes). Usually, the energy required to keep a drink hot exceeds the battery power capacity for a small portable device, but after conducting an online survey of 300 people, Alba and Gregory found there was a narrower niche to fill. They noted that a number of survey respondents, particularly millennials, tend to abandon takeout coffee when it loses heat, tossing the final third.

“We realized there isn’t a need to keep the drink indefinitely hot,” says Gregory. Making a device that can match the temperature of the coffee and keep it level for just 15 minutes longer, not hours at a time, she says, was a much more achievable task. And thus was born a take-out coffee accessory, which is rechargeable for daily use.

“This project is a way of testing our engineering skills,” says Alba. “Can we take something from the beginning of an idea to launch? Can we do that all by ourselves with the resources we have available to us?”

The speed

Gregory and Alba successfully designed the prototype in January and intend to launch the first batch of 1,000 Coffee Cookies by early April, at the latest. The venture is a welcome break from a larger group startup venture they are also involved in, whose difficult and long-term goal is designing a miniature jet engine.

The four weeks of winter break — the prototyping phase — were intense. In dorm rooms and student maker spaces, Gregory and Alba sometimes worked 24 hours straight. “Without school you really don’t have to keep a schedule so you can just work to your limit and then crash,” says Gregory. Alba chimes in: “Our mantra became work nonstop.”

In a single day, they designed and 3-D-printed, in fast mode, a raw proof of concept. The first prototype lacked a circuit board, and parts of it were held together with hot glue. Next came a series of more sophisticated prototypes that fit a wide variety of takeout cups and included a circuit board, an injection-molded outer shell, component parts, and an official patent-pending status. Now they are waiting for 1,000 batteries to arrive from China, an order which cost them $2,000, and then they’ll assemble, and sell, their first batch of Coffee Cookies.

“A lot of startups nowadays are trying to revolutionize the world,” says Alba. “We really want to make something fun and get it to people fast.”

Gregory adds: “We like the idea of seeing if we can pull it off.”

The partnership

The creative partnership between Gregory and Alba dates back to the summer of their sophomore year. As interns at JP Morgan in New York, both realized the corporate track was not for them. “We decided to stick to our guns and do something original. We came to MIT to make things. Our decision to follow through on that became the basis of our partnership,” says Alba.

Alba has wanted to be an engineer since childhood. As a boy in Arizona, he loved making things, including small robots built from salvaged objects. His projects evolved to 3-D printing and machining by high school, and during those years, MIT loomed large as the place for him.

Gregory, a Syracuse native, proved adept at math and science from an early age. As a first-year student at MIT, she was determined to “create a product that people don’t yet know they want” — a concept she absorbed during an Independent Activities Period course called Designing for People. Now she and Alba have landed on an invisible need and designed a product to meet it.

The future

Early signs point to success. When Gregory and Alba pitched the Coffee Cookie to the board of the Sandbox Innovation Fund Program, the distinguished panel of entrepreneurs and innovators responded with enthusiasm. In their deliberations after the presentation, board members described the startup as scrappy and impressive — and decided to award them $10,000.

Soon Gregory and Alba will sell their first round of Coffee Cookies directly to students. “We’ll see if there is real potential,” says Gregory. “It would be great to one day see it on the shelves of Walmart and Target,” adds Alba, “but this is really about taking on a challenge and having fun.”

With conviction, Gregory adds: “If the Coffee Cookie fails, we’ll come up with other ideas and keep going.”

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2oamnqA

A faster single-pixel camera

Compressed sensing is an exciting new computational technique for extracting large amounts of information from a signal. In one high-profile demonstration, for instance, researchers at Rice University built a camera that could produce 2-D images using only a single light sensor rather than the millions of light sensors found in a commodity camera.

But using compressed sensing for image acquisition is inefficient: That “single-pixel camera” needed thousands of exposures to produce a reasonably clear image. Reporting their results in the journal IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging, researchers from the MIT Media Lab now describe a new technique that makes image acquisition using compressed sensing 50 times as efficient. In the case of the single-pixel camera, it could get the number of exposures down from thousands to dozens.

One intriguing aspect of compressed-sensing imaging systems is that, unlike conventional cameras, they don’t require lenses. That could make them useful in harsh environments or in applications that use wavelengths of light outside the visible spectrum. Getting rid of the lens opens new prospects for the design of imaging systems.

"Formerly, imaging required a lens, and the lens would map pixels in space to sensors in an array, with everything precisely structured and engineered," says Guy Satat, a graduate student at the Media Lab and first author on the new paper.  "With computational imaging, we began to ask: Is a lens necessary?  Does the sensor have to be a structured array? How many pixels should the sensor have? Is a single pixel sufficient? These questions essentially break down the fundamental idea of what a camera is.  The fact that only a single pixel is required and a lens is no longer necessary relaxes major design constraints, and enables the development of novel imaging systems. Using ultrafast sensing makes the measurement significantly more efficient." 

Recursive applications

One of Satat’s coauthors on the new paper is his thesis advisor, associate professor of media arts and sciences Ramesh Raskar. Like many projects from Raskar’s group, the new compressed-sensing technique depends on time-of-flight imaging, in which a short burst of light is projected into a scene, and ultrafast sensors measure how long the light takes to reflect back.

The technique uses time-of-flight imaging, but somewhat circularly, one of its potential applications is improving the performance of time-of-flight cameras. It could thus have implications for a number of other projects from Raskar’s group, such as a camera that can see around corners and visible-light imaging systems for medical diagnosis and vehicular navigation.

Many prototype systems from Raskar’s Camera Culture group at the Media Lab have used time-of-flight cameras called streak cameras, which are expensive and difficult to use: They capture only one row of image pixels at a time. But the past few years have seen the advent of commercial time-of-flight cameras called SPADs, for single-photon avalanche diodes.

Though not nearly as fast as streak cameras, SPADs are still fast enough for many time-of-flight applications, and they can capture a full 2-D image in a single exposure. Furthermore, their sensors are built using manufacturing techniques common in the computer chip industry, so they should be cost-effective to mass produce.

With SPADs, the electronics required to drive each sensor pixel take up so much space that the pixels end up far apart from each other on the sensor chip. In a conventional camera, this limits the resolution. But with compressed sensing, it actually increases it.

Getting some distance

The reason the single-pixel camera can make do with one light sensor is that the light that strikes it is patterned. One way to pattern light is to put a filter, kind of like a randomized black-and-white checkerboard, in front of the flash illuminating the scene. Another way is to bounce the returning light off of an array of tiny micromirrors, some of which are aimed at the light sensor and some of which aren’t.

The sensor makes only a single measurement — the cumulative intensity of the incoming light. But if it repeats the measurement enough times, and if the light has a different pattern each time, software can deduce the intensities of the light reflected from individual points in the scene.

The single-pixel camera was a media-friendly demonstration, but in fact, compressed sensing works better the more pixels the sensor has. And the farther apart the pixels are, the less redundancy there is in the measurements they make, much the way you see more of the visual scene before you if you take two steps to your right rather than one. And, of course, the more measurements the sensor performs, the higher the resolution of the reconstructed image.

Economies of scale

Time-of-flight imaging essentially turns one measurement — with one light pattern — into dozens of measurements, separated by trillionths of seconds. Moreover, each measurement corresponds with only a subset of pixels in the final image — those depicting objects at the same distance. That means there’s less information to decode in each measurement.

In their paper, Satat, Raskar, and Matthew Tancik, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, present a theoretical analysis of compressed sensing that uses time-of-flight information. Their analysis shows how efficiently the technique can extract information about a visual scene, at different resolutions and with different numbers of sensors and distances between them.

They also describe a procedure for computing light patterns that minimizes the number of exposures.  And, using synthetic data, they compare the performance of their reconstruction algorithm to that of existing compressed-sensing algorithms. But in ongoing work, they are developing a prototype of the system so that they can test their algorithm on real data.

“Many of the applications of compressed imaging lie in two areas,” says Justin Romberg, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech. “One is out-of-visible-band sensing, where sensors are expensive, and the other is microscopy or scientific imaging, where you have a lot of control over where you illuminate the field that you’re trying to image. Taking a measurement is expensive, in terms of either the cost of a sensor or the time it takes to acquire an image, so cutting that down can reduce cost or increase bandwidth. And any time building a dense array of sensors is hard, the tradeoffs in this kind of imaging would come into play.”

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$4.5M from Exelon funds research on advanced nuclear fuel cladding coatings

Assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering Michael Short and collaborators — professors Bilge Yildiz, Matteo Bucci, and Evelyn Wang, as well as the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory and the Westinghouse Electric Company — have received $4.5 million in funding from Exelon to support research that could transform the performance of fuel rod outer layers, known as cladding, in light water reactors (LWRs).

Four major problems negatively affect the safe and reliable operation of LWR fuel cladding: fretting and wear from grid-to-rod-fretting (GTRF) and foreign material; the buildup of porous corrosion deposits known as “crud”; hydrogen absorption; and boiling crisis. Fretting can wear through the fuel cladding, while crud and hydrogen absorption can lead to corrosion-based fuel failure, respectively. Finally, a “boiling crisis” is when the normally bubbly mode of coolant boiling, called sub-cooled nucleate boiling, transitions to film boiling, insulating the fuel with a layer of steam and worsening heat transfer. All four can and have caused failure of the fuel cladding, leading to radioactive releases into the coolant and costing reactor operators over $1 million per day of downtime to fix the problem.

The goal of the newly funded MIT project is to address all four issues at once by developing a viable solution within three years, consisting of engineered cladding surface coatings and micro/nano-geometric modifications. The team will design a set of coatings and surface modifications for Zircolay-based fuel cladding currently in use. The combination will simultaneously:

• minimize or prevent crud (chalk river unidentified deposits) buildup and hydrogen pickup, which in turn will increase the lifetime, stability, and power density of the fuel;
• improve hardness to prevent grid-to-rod fretting, which occurs when the spacer grid (a metal piece which separates the fuel rods) and the rods themselves vibrate and wear holes into the metal; and
• maximize critical heat flux (critical heat flux describes the thermal limit of a phenomenon where a phase change occurs during heating) to improve hear transfer.

This targeted three-year development time from lab-scale tests to commercial reactor implementation is would be unprecedented. The normal process for most new reactor components is between 10 and 15 years.

The MIT team will work with fuel vendor Westinghouse Electric Company and electric utility Exelon to test and identify the best coating for commercialization and use in a commercial U.S. reactor by 2019. The project brings together MIT researchers from the departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and the MIT Nuclear Reactor Lab.

The funding will support research in the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Studies (CANES), one of the MIT Energy Initiative's eight Low-Carbon Energy Centers, which Exelon joined as a member in 2016 to advance key enabling technologies for addressing climate change.

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Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the euro area

Calling attention to the slowing of a metric known as total factor productivity growth and an increasing innovation gap in the euro area, thought leaders in academia, government, risk capital, and industry discussed the need for innovation and entrepreneurship to overcome such challenges during a two-day conference on March 13-14 in Frankfurt, Germany.

Organized by the MIT Innovation Initiative’s Lab for Innovation Science and Policy and the European Central Bank (ECB), the joint conference was opened by ECB President Mario Draghi PhD ’77 and MIT Provost Martin A. Schmidt, and featured panels chaired by ECB Vice President Vítor Constâncio and ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet. The conference aimed to highlight the key role technology-based innovation can play in fostering regional growth and to help identify evidence-based solutions.

Draghi noted that, while the topic may be unusual for a central bank conference at first glance, there is only so much monetary policy can do as it principally operates through the demand side of the economy. The key to productivity growth lies not just in the creation of new ideas, but also in their diffusion. Draghi additionally observed that “it is equally important for the euro area to facilitate and encourage the spread of new technology from the frontier to the laggard firms. Simply by diffusing better the technology we already have, we could make sizeable gains in productivity.”

Schmidt took a micro approach, providing his view on the topic from the MIT lens. He pointed to the Institute’s efforts in studying the importance of robust ecosystems to support innovation, as well as its work in creating it in partnership with key stakeholders, as evidenced by the Kendall Square of today. “From our perspective, it is clear that vibrant ecosystems are critical to the process of innovation. It’s equally clear these ecosystems need to dynamically evolve. We believe that they will evolve if all the stakeholders contribute to the commons and participate in this evolution,” said Schmidt.

The structure and content of the conference drew on recent research that is developing the field of innovation science — an evidence-based approach to understanding the innovation process. This emerging area of study, which MIT is helping to build through its Lab for Innovation Science and Policy, highlights novel frameworks for evaluating a region’s innovative and entrepreneurial capacity, tools for identifying areas of comparative advantage, and options for developing ecosystem-level policies and programs for accelerating innovation and entrepreneurship.

Encompassing the larger, more integrated European context, the workshop delved into topics of new measures, ecosystem approaches, and ways to partner and collaborate over four intensive sessions. Augmenting the panels were keynote speeches given by Carlos Moedas, European Commission commissioner in charge of research, science, and innovation, who talked about why fostering innovation is crucial to avert secular stagnation and the reason it is particularly urgent for the euro area; Manuel Trajtenberg, professor of economics at Tel Aviv University, who emphasized demographic trends and missed human potential as the critical issues that innovation and entrepreneurship should be channeled to tackle; and Grete Faremo, under-secretary-general and executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services, who highlighted the connection and importance of innovation in emerging nations to progress in Europe.

The first session set the stage with a discussion of the future of economic growth with and without total factor productivity growth — an economic term defined as the growth in output that exceeds growth in capital and labor inputs — and raised the main issues and questions for the other panels to address in greater detail.

During a session that considered new measures to better capture the changing nature of innovation and entrepreneurship, Christian Ketels, a member of the Harvard Business School faculty at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, noted that innovation and entrepreneurship often happens at the intersection of related industries and technology fields within regional clusters of economic activity. Sharing findings from his research, Ketels pointed to data that indicate strong clusters provide more robust environments for turning new ideas into sustainable, growth businesses.

Building on Ketel’s presentation, Scott Stern, the David Sarnoff Professor of Management at MIT Sloan School of Management, gave an overview of his joint research developing new, empirical measures of entrepreneurial quality showing the rate at which high-potential growth startups are founded. He commented that the new measures could be useful in driving policy and acceleration in part because they facilitate “shared understanding as a driver of coordinated activity in a world where innovation and entrepreneurship are not controlled by any one agency or person.” 

The conference culminated in extracting policy lessons for the euro area during the final session. Fiona Murray, the Bill Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship, associate dean of innovation at MIT Sloan, and co-director of the MIT Innovation Initiative, advocated for an education experiment. Given the high rates of youth employment in parts of Europe, she argued that deviating from traditional teaching methods would be a test worth undertaking in order to help prepare the next generation. “I believe strongly that we must challenge our universities, our educators, and our students to actually push the system, to experiment, and to demand a different way of being educated rather than have all that be top down,” she said.

Ann Mettler, head of the European Political Strategy Center for the European Commission, brought up the need for better benchmarks, improving the connection between the macro and the micro, and the significance of data as a driver of innovation. She urged all regional policymakers to see their potential for innovation, even in the face of fiscal constraints or limited risk capital. Furthermore, she emphasized the importance of embracing failure as much as success in the innovation process. “Innovation suggests success. Every policymaker wants success, but what they have to learn is to get success, you have many, many failures, way more failures than success. We need to do a much better job of saying innovation requires failure.”

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Maria Zuber: Federal government has unique role in supporting scientific discovery

“Our unwavering commitment to promoting the progress of science has opened new windows on the universe, made possible new industries, and improved the lives of all Americans,” MIT Vice President for Research Maria T. Zuber told members of the U.S. House of Representatives at a March 21 hearing of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, speaking in her role as chair of the National Science Board (NSB).

“The question before us,” she continued, “is will the world’s richest, most powerful nation continue to invest in our future? Do we still want to be the first to know, to understand, to discover, to invent?”

The 25-member NSB is the governing board for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Zuber appeared before the subcommittee at the second in a series of hearings examining the foundation’s role in the federal research enterprise. Also testifying on the topic of “Future Opportunities and Challenges for Science” were Joan Ferrini-Mundy, acting chief operating officer of the NSF; Jeffrey Spies, co-founder of the Center for Open Science and an assistant professor at the University of Virginia; and Keith Yamamoto, vice chancellor for science, policy, and strategy at the University of California at San Francisco.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Comstock (R-VA) set the stage in her opening remarks, acknowledging NSF’s success in keeping the United States at the forefront of science for nearly 70 years, while asking what should be done to maintain leadership for the next 70 years. The Science Committee, she said, is looking to address a full reauthorization of the foundation later this year, building on the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act signed into law in January. “We want to make sure that the way we fund, support, and conduct science is as innovative as the research it produces,” Comstock said.

But, she added, this must be done in the face of new challenges (such as priority setting under budget constraints) and opportunities (such as the proliferation of data available from a variety of sources). NSF’s continuing role in educating the next generation of science-literate workers, Comstock said, is also a major interest for the committee.

Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), the ranking member of the Subcommittee, replied that Science Committee members of both parties share the desire to maximize the benefits of federal investments in science, but sometimes disagree about methods. Among the topics to be discussed at the hearing, he listed research reproducibility, scientific integrity, and maximizing access to data obtained via federally sponsored research as points of agreement, along with a desire to balance disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research opportunities. But disagreements have arisen in recent years regarding the degree to which Congress should specify prioritization among scientific disciplines.

Ferrini-Mundy highlighted four features of NSF’s approach to fulfilling its mission “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense”:

• an emphasis on fundamental research across all fields of science and engineering;
• flexibility with regards to funding mechanisms and program structures, allowing the agency to fund the best ideas from wherever they may come, in well-established fields, in emerging fields, or across fields;
• the use of partnerships across the federal government, with scientists from other countries, and with private industry, in agenda-setting and in research performance; and
• support for people — scientists and students — to carry the work forward, through NSF’s research programs and  its education programs.

Through seven decades, she said, these features have led to transformational discoveries across many fields of science and engineering, which in turn have fueled innovation across American industry and society — much as Vannevar Bush envisioned in “Science, the Endless Frontier,” the post-World War II manifesto which ultimately led the creation of the National Science Foundation.

Zuber also referred to Bush’s vision, describing it as the foundation of a 70-year partnership between Congress, U.S. presidents, and the research community which has brought NSF to the pre-eminent position it holds today. She urged the committee not to let budget constraints, the national discourse regarding limitations to the role of government, international competition, and other current challenges unravel that partnership. She offered three suggestions for moving ahead:

• maintain the federal government’s unique investment in discovery research across all fields of science and engineering;
• prepare a STEM-capable workforce so that all Americans can participate in, and benefit from, scientific progress; and, for the research community; and
• maintain the trust and confidence of the American public.

Only a federal partnership with the research community, Zuber said, can afford the kinds of long-term investments in high-risk science that pay off in discoveries such as last years’ observations of gravitational waves by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. NSF funded that work for 20 years before the first waves were detected.

In his testimony and in a question and answer session with committee members, Spies discussed how NSF might make its research portfolio more transparent and more efficient through the adoption of additional policies encouraging broad access to research data. Yamomoto stressed the growing opportunities for transdisciplinary research, calling for new methods for evaluating proposals that do not fit neatly in disciplinary silos. Ferrini-Mundy pointed out that several current NSF efforts, such as “Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems,” and “Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace,” adopt these perspectives, as does the interagency BRAIN Initiative.

Another Q&A topic was NSF’s record for supporting young scientists. Ferrini-Mundy reported that, unlike some other federal agencies, NSF does not collect the age of grant applicants. But it does allow them to report the time since they received their last degree. Applicants seven years or less post-degree have about an 18 percent chance of receiving a grant, compared to 22 percent for more experienced applicants. Zuber pointed out that the NSF also supports many scientists even earlier in their career, as graduate students and postdocs. Yamamoto said he thinks opportunities are good once an early-career scientist is able to apply for their own grants, but that this happens too late. He believes too much emphasis is placed on extended graduate work and postdoctoral positions. Most research scientists, he said, should have the opportunity to seek independent grants four to eight years after they begin graduate school.

All four witnesses stressed the importance of strong NSF support in and across all areas of science and engineering, including two areas which have come under scrutiny from committee leadership in the last few years: the social and behavioral sciences, and geoscience. Yamomoto highlighted important contributions from social and behavioral scientists to transdisciplinary research programs, while Zuber spoke to their role in protecting national security. She pointed out that the social and behavioral sciences are now using computational resources at the scale they were used a decade ago in the mathematical and physical and sciences. It would be a tragedy, she said, to cut back on this work just as appears to be poised for a breakthrough.

Zuber, whose academic title is E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics within the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, also gave a spirited defense of the work of NSF’s geosciences directorate. The U.S. has moved a long way toward energy independence, she observed, based on the improved understanding of subsurface science behind hydraulic fracking technology. NSF’s geosciences program, she continued, also funds polar science and studies of the Earth’s atmosphere and geosphere. These studies are important to maintaining much of the infrastructure on which many modern commercial and emergency services depend, such as telecommunications, the electrical grid, and the Global Positioning System.

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Ash Carter to serve as MIT visiting innovation fellow

Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will join MIT as a visiting innovation fellow, working with researchers and students from the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management to put new ideas into action for the public good.   

“At every step of his distinguished career, including most recently as Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter has been an innovator,” says MIT President L. Rafael Reif. “The MIT community will benefit immensely from his interest in and gift for working with young people, and be inspired by his conviction that technology and innovation can be central to solving humanity's toughest challenges.”

"I am pleased to continue my long relationship with MIT and its technologists, many of whom supported our mission at the Department of Defense," Carter says. "I share MIT's longstanding commitment to making a better world through technology and through training and inspiring the next generation. This fellowship is a welcome opportunity to continue to work with the excellent researchers and students at the Sloan School and the School of Engineering, and reconnect with the vibrant Boston technology community.”

Visiting innovation fellows are part of MIT’s Innovation Initiative, which collaborates with all five schools at the Institute to equip the MIT community and its partners to move entrepreneurial ideas from conception to impact.

Visiting innovation fellows are drawn from policy, corporate, risk capital, and entrepreneurial settings. They engage with the MIT community by convening events, lectures, and student meetings. Past innovation fellows have included Bob Metcalfe ’68, who co-invented Ethernet and co-founded 3Com, and Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Carter knows MIT well, having served as an MIT postdoc early in his career and, more recently, on the advisory board at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. As Secretary of Defense, Carter visited MIT in December 2015 to discuss innovation in industries such as health care, biotechnology, and energy. He returned to campus last April to speak with students, visit the MIT Media Lab and Broad Institute, and to announce that an independent nonprofit founded by MIT had been selected to run a $317 million public-private partnership, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America Institute, to accelerate innovation in high-tech, U.S.-based manufacturing involving fibers and textiles.

“Ash Carter has emphasized the critical role of innovation in foreign policy and national security,” says Fiona Murray, associate dean for innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-director of the MIT Innovation Initiative, and the William Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship. “His introduction of novel models of bridging industry, university, and government stakeholders has advanced military efforts in many technical domains. We are looking forward to giving our students the opportunity to learn from his extensive experience.”

As Secretary of Defense, Carter made innovation a priority. He opened Defense Department outposts in tech hubs such as Boston and Silicon Valley, in order to strengthen connections between leading private sector companies and the government and military. He promoted new investments in technology; opened up all military positions to women without exception; and, through the Force of the Future initiatives, transformed the way the Defense Department recruits, trains, and retains high-quality employees.

Carter earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics and in medieval history, summa cum laude, from Yale University, where he was also Phi Beta Kappa. He received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

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David Shoemaker named spokesperson for LIGO Scientific Collaboration

Effective immediately, David Shoemaker, director of the MIT Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Laboratory, will assume the role of spokesperson for the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC).
 
As spokesperson, Shoemaker will coordinate and speak on behalf of the gravitational wave science carried out by more than 1,000 scientists in 15 countries in observatories located in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, as well as a detector in Hannover, Germany.

“I’m honored and humbled to be able to speak on behalf of my colleagues and our research on gravitational wave detection,” says Shoemaker, a senior research scientist at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, who was elected by the LSC’s council members to a two-year term.

“The collaborative work of hundreds of scientists and engineers has allowed us to pull the curtains and peek into the new window of the universe that was opened last year,” says Laura Cadonati, a professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech, and chair of the LSC’s Data Analysis Council, who will work closely with Shoemaker in his role.

Shoemaker has been working on interferometric instrumentation since the late 1970s when he worked in Professor Emeritus Rai Weiss’ lab, earning his master of science degree from MIT in 1980. After earning his PhD in physics from the Université de Paris, Shoemaker returned to the Institute in 1989.

He became head of the MIT group working on LIGO in the early 1990s and later headed up the Advanced LIGO Project. Shoemaker was named a fellow of the American Physical Society for this work in the field.
 
"We are incredibly proud that David and other MIT scientists have played key roles in the landmark detection of gravitational waves," says Michael Sipser, dean of the School of Science and the Donner Professor of Mathematics. "Grown from Rai Weiss's original concept more than 50 years ago, the LIGO project stands out as a marvelous achievement for science."

“Based on his technical experience and interactive skills with people, I expect as spokesperson of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, he will help advance both the detector sensitivity and the data analysis,” says Weiss.

The original LIGO project, led by MIT and Caltech with support the National Science Foundation, established the Livingston and Hanford observatories, reached the instrument design sensitivity, and observed for an extended period. However, they did not have success in detecting gravitational waves during initial operations which ended in 2011. 

After an overhaul of the instrumentation for Advanced LIGO, on Sept. 14, 2015, the instruments made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, just two days after scientists restarted observations.  

“David’s leadership on the upgrade of the detectors was a major factor in the LIGO Laboratory’s detection of gravitational waves,” says Jacqueline N. Hewitt, director of the MIT Kavli Institute. “He has the deep technical knowledge not only to speak to future LIGO discoveries, but also to help coordinate the research of our collaborators around the globe.”

Three months later, the detectors picked up another signal from another black hole merger, 1.4 billion light years away. 

“Now with confirmed observations of binary black holes, we are really eager to see what else the cosmos will deliver in the form of gravitational waves,” says Shoemaker. 

In November of last year, scientists restarted the LIGO system after additional improvements were made to increase the observatory’s sensitivity by 10 to 25 percent. With these improvements, the detector in Livingston, Louisiana, is a step closer to detecting the gravitational waves from other objects, such as the merger of two neutron stars.

Nergis Mavalvala, part of the MIT LIGO Laboratory team — whose research in the instrumentation development for the interferometric gravitational-wave detectors began as a graduate student at MIT — says she, too, is waiting for that next big leap forward.

“In the next two years, as the LIGO instruments improve, they will, and they should, be able to see more instances of objects such other binary black holes or things we haven’t, as of yet seen, such as coveted binary neutron stars,” says Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics and the associate head of the Department of Physics. 

A neutron star–neutron star merger is thought to be the producer and distributor of heavy metals, such as precious metals, throughout the galaxy.

“But I imagine, there will come a moment in time in which gravitational waves will be observed, and we’ll have no clue what the source is,” Mavalvala says. “There will be something no one predicted.” 

Shoemaker adds, “This will be a wonderful moment where we can unravel a mystery story for which the unique key is the gravitational-wave signature.”

Since the second Advanced LIGO detection run began late last year, three possible event candidates have been identified and shared with LSC astronomers. The analysis of these data is still ongoing, according to news shared on the LSC website.

“In addition to providing leadership on the development of future large-scale gravitational wave detectors, David will be a wonderful spokesperson to communicate the exciting new findings on behalf of the collaboration,” says Gabriela González, outgoing spokesperson for the LSC and professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University. “In his role, he will continue to nurture the LSC’s teamwork and help further our mission of exploring the fundamental physics of gravity — and ultimately, the universe.

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Progress toward a Zika vaccine

Using a new strategy that can rapidly generate customized RNA vaccines, MIT researchers have devised a new vaccine candidate for the Zika virus.

The vaccine consists of strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA, which are packaged into a nanoparticle that delivers the RNA into cells. Once inside cells, the RNA is translated into proteins that provoke an immune response from the host, but the RNA does not integrate itself into the host genome, making it potentially safer than a DNA vaccine or vaccinating with the virus itself.

“It functions almost like a synthetic virus, except it’s not pathogenic and it doesn’t spread,” says Omar Khan, a postdoc at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and an author of the new study. “We can control how long it’s expressed, and it’s RNA so it will never integrate into the host genome.”

This research also yielded a new benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of other Zika vaccine candidates, which could help others who are working toward the same goal.

Jasdave Chahal, a postdoc at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, is the first author of the paper, which appears in Scientific Reports. The paper’s senior author is Hidde Ploegh, a former MIT biology professor and Whitehead Institute member who is now a senior investigator in the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Other authors of the paper are Tao Fang and Andrew Woodham, both former Whitehead Institute postdocs in the Ploegh lab; Jingjing Ling, an MIT graduate student; and Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of the Koch Institute and MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).

Programmable vaccines

The MIT team first reported its new approach to programmable RNA vaccines last year. RNA vaccines are appealing because they induce host cells to produce many copies of the proteins encoded by the RNA. This provokes a stronger immune reaction than if the proteins were administered on their own. However, finding a safe and effective way to deliver these vaccines has proven challenging.

The researchers devised an approach in which they package RNA sequences into a nanoparticle made from a branched molecule that is based on fractal-patterned dendrimers. This modified-dendrimer-RNA structure can be induced to fold over itself many times, producing a spherical particle about 150 nanometers in diameter. This is similar in size to a typical virus, allowing the particles to enter cells through the same viral entry mechanisms. In their 2016 paper, the researchers used this nanoparticle approach to generate experimental vaccines for Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and the parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

In the new study, the researchers tackled Zika virus, which emerged as an epidemic centered in Brazil in 2015 and has since spread around the world, causing serious birth defects in babies born to infected mothers. Since the MIT method does not require working with the virus itself, the researchers believe they might be able to explore potential vaccines more rapidly than scientists pursuing a more traditional approach.

Instead of using viral proteins or weakened forms of the virus as vaccines, which are the most common strategies, the researchers simply programmed their RNA nanoparticles with the sequences that encode Zika virus proteins. Once injected into the body, these molecules replicate themselves inside cells and instruct cells to produce the viral proteins.

The entire process of designing, producing, and testing the vaccine in mice took less time than it took for the researchers to obtain permission to work with samples of the Zika virus, which they eventually did get.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Chahal says. “Once we decided to do it, in two weeks we were ready to vaccinate mice. Access to virus itself was not necessary.”

Measuring response

When developing a vaccine, researchers usually aim to generate a response from both arms of the immune system — the adaptive arm, mediated by T cells and antibodies, and the innate arm, which is necessary to amplify the adaptive response. To measure whether an experimental vaccine has generated a strong T cell response, researchers can remove T cells from the body and then measure how they respond to fragments of the viral protein.

Until now, researchers working on Zika vaccines have had to buy libraries of different protein fragments and then test T cells on them, which is an expensive and time-consuming process. Because the MIT researchers could generate so many T cells from their vaccinated mice, they were able to rapidly screen them against this library. They identified a sequence of eight amino acids that the activated T cells in the mouse respond to. Now that this sequence, also called an epitope, is known, other researchers can use it to test their own experimental Zika vaccines in the appropriate mouse models.

“We can synthetically make these vaccines that are almost like infecting someone with the actual virus, and then generate an immune response and use the data from that response to help other people predict if their vaccines would work, if they bind to the same epitopes,” Khan says. The researchers hope to eventually move their Zika vaccine into tests in humans.

“The identification and characterization of CD8 T cell epitopes in mice immunized with a Zika RNA vaccine is a very useful reference for all those working in the field of Zika vaccine development,” says Katja Fink, a principal investigator at the A*STAR Singapore Immunology Network. “RNA vaccines have received much attention in the last few years, and while the big breakthrough in humans has not been achieved yet, the technology holds promise to become a flexible platform that could provide rapid solutions for emerging viruses.”

Fink, who was not involved in the research, added that the “initial data are promising but the Zika RNA vaccine approach described needs further testing to prove efficacy.”

Another major area of focus for the researchers is cancer vaccines. Many scientists are working on vaccines that could program a patient’s immune system to attack tumor cells, but in order to do that, they need to know what the vaccine should target. The new MIT strategy could allow scientists to quickly generate personalized RNA vaccines based on the genetic sequence of an individual patient’s tumor cells.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, a Fujifilm/MediVector grant, the Lustgarten Foundation, a Koch Institute and Dana-Farber/Harvard Center Center Bridge Project award, the Department of Defense Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research’s Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program, and the Cancer Center Support Grant from the National Cancer Institute.

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