Tag: DSpace@MIT

OA research in the news: MIT scientists ain’t afraid of no ghost

By Katharine Dunn on July 22, 2016

Photo: Sony Pictures

Several MIT researchers had a hand in boosting the “geek cred” of characters in this summer’s Ghostbusters reboot. Physics faculty members Janet Conrad and Lindley Winslow, along with former postdoc James Maxwell, lent expertise and props to the set — including actual books, posters, and models from Conrad’s office and “a mess of wires and magnets and lasers” from Maxwell’s lab. Winslow, who told MIT News she “probably put in too much time” working on the film, wrote a series of physics equations that appear in a classroom scene with Kristin Wiig’s character.

“They wanted it to be authentic,” Winslow told Wired magazine, “right up to the point when the ghosts show up.”

Explore Professor Conrad’s research and Professor Winslow’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009 they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series of posts that link news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.

OA research in the news: Why women leave engineering

By Katharine Dunn on June 17, 2016

photo by Candace. Licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND

Studies show that engineering is the most gender-segregated of all science and technology fields, from college classes to the workplace. Explanations for this tend to focus on a lack of women mentors and career demands that are in conflict with family life.

MIT sociologist and anthropologist Susan Silbey and colleagues offer some additional explanations in a recently published study: Women engineering students can feel marginalized because of “everyday sexism” encountered during internships or team-based educational activities. In turn, women “develop less confidence that they will ‘fit’ into the culture of engineering,” the researchers write in their paper.

The researchers asked more than 40 undergraduate engineering students from four schools (including MIT) to keep monthly diaries over four years of study, and they and also conducted interviews.

Explore Professor Silbey’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

OA research in the news: A cheap, fast test for the Zika virus

By Katharine Dunn on May 13, 2016

Image: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Researchers at MIT and other universities have developed a cheap, fast test to diagnose the Zika virus, which is spread by infected mosquitoes and is particularly dangerous to pregnant women. The test involves sensors embedded in paper that can detect a particular genetic sequence found in Zika. If the sequence is present in a person’s blood, urine, or saliva, the paper changes color within hours.

“We have a system that could be widely distributed and used in the field with low cost and very few resources,” said lead researcher James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), in a story by MIT News. Other MIT researchers involved include Lee Gehrke, the Hermann L.F. von Helmholtz Professor in IMES.

A Zika virus outbreak began in Brazil in 2015; most people have mild or few symptoms, so they may not realize they’ve been infected. But the virus can cause serious birth defects.

The new test could soon be used in the field. “More work and additional testing would be needed to ensure safety and efficacy before actual deployment,” said Collins. “We’re not far off.”

Explore Professor Collins’ research and Professor Gehrke’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

OA research in the news: New website turns data into knowledge

By Katharine Dunn on April 8, 2016

Data USA In 2013, federal, state, and local governments were required to make their data openly available. More than 195,000 datasets on property values, family incomes, and many other topics are now free for reuse. But how to sift through and understand it all?

A new project announced this week by the MIT Media Lab promises to turn “data into knowledge.” The project, a visualization website called Data USA, was led by Cesar Hidalgo, an associate professor in the Media Lab, who worked for over a year with the consulting firm Deloitte and programmers, economists, designers, and researchers to develop the site.

Type “Massachusetts” into the Data USA search box and the page displays options for exploring the economy, demographics, housing, and health. Under “education,” for example, you can find the percentage of degrees awarded by MIT in the state (2.6%) and see a colorful visualization of the data.

“The goal was organize and visualize data in a way that a lot of people think about it,” said Patricia Buckley, director of economic policy and analysis at Deloitte, in the New York Times.

Explore Professor Hidalgo’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009, they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series of posts that link news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.

OA research in the news: Dean Ortiz to leave MIT, start new university

By Katharine Dunn on February 4, 2016

Photo: Justin Knight

MIT’s dean for graduate education is leaving the Institute to start a new nonprofit university focused on projects over lectures and large, open labs over classrooms. Christine Ortiz, who is also a professor of materials science and engineering, told the Chronicle of Higher Education this week that she’s eager to reshape what a university can be by focusing on modern needs and using today’s technology.

“We’ll have a core that’s project-based learning, but where students can have a really deep, integrative longer-term project rather than shorter projects. And then all of the knowledge acquisition would be moved virtually,” she said in the interview.

Ortiz has assembled a team and will start fundraising soon. She steps down from MIT in July.

Explore Professor Ortiz’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

OA research in the news: Searching for the oldest stars

By Katharine Dunn on December 9, 2015

Frebel and book In a new book published this month, MIT astronomer Anna Frebel chronicles her work as a stellar archaeologist, scanning the skies with telescopes and spectroscopes to study ancient stars and their chemical composition. Frebel and her colleagues have identified some of the oldest known stars, which help researchers learn about what the universe looked like in its first billion years.

“Why is that interesting? Because stars in general make all the chemical elements we know from the periodic table, inside their cores,” said Frebel in an interview with MIT News. “So everything we know and love, all the matter we’re made of today, had to be cooked up in stars and supernova explosions for billions of years.”

In her book Frebel highlights contributions to astronomy made by women, including the “Harvard Computers,” dozens of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who catalogued stars, classified spectra, and did their own research in the Harvard College Observatory. “My work kind of goes back to many of the things they did,” said Frebel. “And I find it really important to remember what has been done before, and what the contributions of women were in science. In my book, it comes through here and there, that I’m just one of those sisters, and that we keep doing what we’re doing, and so will many others after me, I’m sure.”

Explore Professor Frebel’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009, they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series that links news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.

Downloads of open access articles hit new monthly peak

By on November 12, 2015

dspace screen shot de weck article heavy downloads In October 2015, downloads of the 18,000 articles deposited in DSpace@MIT in accordance with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy topped 180,000. This was a new record, leaping beyond the prior bar of 123,000 set in September.

Among the top 10 most downloaded articles for the month of October 2015 were:

An Independent Assessment of the Technical Feasibility of the Mars One Mission Plan
co-authored by four MIT-affiliated authors: graduate student Sydney Do, Koki Ho, Samuel Schreiner, graduate student Andrew Owens, and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Olivier de Weck. (also the most downloaded in August 2015)
Measurement of the inelastic proton–proton cross-section at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector by MIT Senior Research Scientist Frank E. Taylor and co-authors. (also among the most downloaded in August 2015)
The thermophysical properties of seawater: A review of existing correlations and data by MIT authors Professor John Lienhard and Research Affiliate Syed M. Zubair, and coauthor Mostafa H Sharqawy (also among the most downloaded in April and May).
Quantifying supply chain disruption risk using Monte Carlo and discrete-event simulation by MIT co-authors Mahender Singh and MIT co-author Amanda Schmitt.

Readers downloading these papers come from many walks of life. One recent reader wrote:

“I am a ‘semi-retired’ physicist who is attempting to keep up with the literature in the wild west ( Idaho Falls, Idaho ) It is very difficult to obtain original journal access and inter-library access is very slow ( usually ).”

Other readers’ comments are available through the oastories.mit.edu web service, where you can click on a map and see what readers from a particular country are saying.

To view download statistics, visit the Open Access Article Statistics site.

To have your article appear in these statistics, MIT authors may deposit a manuscript to the collection by logging in to DSpace@MIT.

This news is part of a series of regular reports on activity related to the Open Access Articles Collection in DSpace@MIT, which was launched in October 2009 to house articles deposited in association with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

Ellen Finnie Duranceau, Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing, Copyright & Licensing, MIT Libraries

OA research in the news: MIT faculty win Breakthrough Prizes

By Katharine Dunn on

Photo by PopTech https://flic.kr/p/zUiWKk Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Ed Boyden – PopTech 2015. Photo by PopTech. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike.

Three MIT researchers were honored this week in a star-studded, televised ceremony for the Breakthrough Prizes, which go to “important, primarily recent, achievements” in fundamental physics, life sciences, and math. The 2016 Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences, worth $3 million each, went to five scientists including Edward Boyden, associate professor of media arts and sciences, biological engineering, and brain and cognitive sciences. Boyden received the award for his work developing optogenetics.

Mathematician Larry Guth and physicist Liang Fu each won a New Horizons prize, worth $100,000. Guth (whose father Alan won a Breakthrough Prize in 2012, the inaugural year) was honored for his “ingenious and surprising solutions to long standing open problems in symplectic geometry, Riemannian geometry, harmonic analysis, and combinatorial geometry.” Fu and two other physicists won for their “outstanding contributions to condensed matter physics, especially involving the use of topology to understand new states of matter.”

The prizes were founded by Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. This year’s ceremony, which aired on the National Geographic Channel (and will rerun on Fox later this month), was hosted by Seth McFarlane and featured appearances by Pharrell Williams, Russell Crowe, and Hilary Swank, among others.

Explore Professor Boyden’s research, Professor Guth’s research, and Professor Fu’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009 they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series of blog posts that link news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.