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Readings

 

LEC # TOPICS READINGS
1 ESD present and future: the incorporation of social science and engineering into research and problem solving Buy at Amazon Snow, C. P. "The Rede Lecture, 1959: The Two Cultures." In The Two Cultures: and A Second Look. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1964, pp. 1-51.
2 How do we know what we know? The generation of cumulative knowledge in a field

Kaiser, David. "When Fields Collide." Scientific American 296, no. 6 (2007): 62-69.

Buy at Amazon Feynman, Richard P. The Character of Physical Law. Edited by Modern Library. New York, NY: Random House, 1994, pp. xix-xx and 3-55. ISBN: 9789576213175.

Buy at Amazon Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1962, pp. xi-xvii and 43-86.

Keim, Brandon. "Scientists Seek Warning Signs for Catastrophic Tipping Points." Wired, September 2, 2009.
3 Boundary setting in engineering systems (ES): where do systems end and begin? Qualitative frameworks, quantitative models and system representation

Bender, Bryan. "Fighting Global Warming with CIA? Some Say Security Fears are Counterproductive." Boston Globe, August 22, 2009.

Nightingale, Deborah J., and Donna H. Rhodes. "Enterprise Systems Architecting: Emerging Art and Science within Engineering Systems." Cambridge, MA: MIT Engineering Systems Symposium, March 2004. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Maier, Mark W. "Architecting Principles for Systems-of-Systems." Systems Engineering 1, no. 4 (1998): 267-284.

Broniatowski, David Andre, and Annalisa L. Weigel. "Articulating the Space Exploration Policy–technology Feedback Cycle." Acta Astronautica 63, nos. 5-6 (2008): 649-656.
4 Modeling paradigms: useful models and various modeling approaches

Krugman, Paul. "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?" The New York Times Magazine, September 6, 2009. (Only Sections I, VII, and VIII are required.)

Buy at Amazon Turkle, Sherry, ed. "Simulation and its Discontents." In Simulation and its Discontents. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009, pp. 2-101. (Only the following pages are required reading: pp. 3-14, 25-30, 43-45, 57-60, 63-64 and 70-84.) ISBN: 9780262012706.

Buy at Amazon Epstein, Joshua M. "Agent-based Computational Models and Generative Social Science." In Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-based Computational Modeling. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, pp. 4-46. ISBN: 9780691125473.

Little, John D. C. "Comment on 'Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus.'" Management Science 50, no. 12S (2004): 1854-1860.

Optional

Buy at Amazon Richerson, Peter J., and Robert Boyd. "Simple Models of Complex Phenomena: The Case of Cultural Evolution." In The Latest on the Best Essays on Evolution and Optimality. Edited by J. Dupre. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987, pp. 27-52. ISBN: 9780262040907.

Little, John D. C. "Models and Managers: The Concept of a Decision Calculus." Reprinted in Management Science 50, no. 12S (2004): 1841-1853.
5 Historical analysis of ES

Friedman, Thomas L. "The New Sputnik." The New York Times, September 26, 2009.

Buy at Amazon Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. "The Railroads: The First Modern Business Enterprises, 1850s-1860s." In The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780674940529.

Buy at Amazon Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics." In The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 19-39. ISBN: 9780226902111.

Buy at Amazon Mindell, David A. Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Space Flight. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780262134972. (Read chapters 2 and 3)
6 Uncertainty in engineering systems

"Natural Disasters: A Season of Calamity." The Economist, October 1, 2009.

Lempert, Robert J., David G. Groves, Steven W. Popper, and Steve C. Bankes. "A General, Analytic Method for Generating Robust Strategies and Narrative Scenarios." Management Science 52, no. 4 (2006): 514-528.

Shiftan, Y., S. Kaplan, and S. Hakkert. "Scenario Building as a Tool for Planning a Sustainable Transportation System." Transportation Research Part D 8, no. 5 (2003): 323-342.

Chandler, David L. "How to Limit Risk of Climate Catastrophe." MIT News, October 2, 2009.

Webster, Mort, Andrei P. Sokolov, John M. Reilly, Chris E. Forest, et al. "Analysis of Climate Policy Targets under Uncertainty." Report No. 180. Cambridge, MA: MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, September 2009. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
7 Empirical data generation: observation of ES

Yoon, Carol Kaesuk. "Lawrence B. Slobodkin, Pioneering Ecologist, Dies at 81." The New York Times, September 21, 2009.

Buy at Amazon Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004, pp. 37-42 and 130-161. ISBN: 9780393325423.

Duflo, Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer. "Additional Resources versus Organizational Changes in Education: Experimental Evidence from Kenya." Draft paper, May 9, 2009. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Huising, Ruthanne, and Susan S. Silbey. "Governing the Gap: Forging Safe Science through a Community of Practice." Draft paper, 2009.

Optional

Poverty Action Lab. (Optional: This link includes some of background on how Duflo, et al.'s work fits into global policy discussions on reducing poverty in the poorest countries in the world.)

Travers, Jeffrey, and Stanley Milgram. "An Experimental Study of the Small World Problem." Sociometry 32, no. 4 (December 1969): 425-443.
8 Empirical data analysis: inferring system-level behavior in ES

Venkataraman, Bina. "Finding Order in the Apparent Chaos of Currents." The New York Times, September 28, 2009.

Buy at Amazon Hall, Stephen S. "The Hidden Crucible." Chapter 3 in Mapping the Next Millenium: The Discovery of New Geographies. New York, NY: Random House, 1992. ISBN: 9780394576350.

Buy at Amazon Morgan, Stephen L., and Christopher Winship. Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Method and Principles for Social Research. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780521671934.

Frey, Daniel D., Paulien M. Herder, Ype Wijnia, Eswaran Subrahmanian, Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, and Don P. Clausing. "The Pugh Controlled Convergence Method: Model-based Evaluation and Implications for Design Theory." Research in Engineering Design 20 (2009): 41-58.

Optional

Hazelrigg, George. "Letter to the Editor re 'The Pugh Controlled Convergence Method: Model-based Evaluation and Implications for Design Theory.'" Research in Engineering Design, October 5, 2009. (Peer review comments on the Frey manuscript)

Frey, Daniel D., et. al. "Research in Engineering Design: The Role of Mathematical Theory and Empirical Evidence." Research in Engineering Design, January 27, 2010. (A response to the peer reviewed comments received)
9 Network models in engineering systems

McKinley, Jesse, and Malia Wollan. "Bay Bridge Failure Raises Question About Long-Term Safety." The New York Times, October 28, 2009.

O'Rourke, T. D. "Critical Infrastructure, Interdependencies, and Resilience." The Bridge 37, no. 1 (2007): 22-29.

Sheffi, Yossi. "Building a Resilient Organization." The Bridge 37, no. 1 (2007): 30-36.

Vickrey, William S. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment." The American Economic Review 59, no. 2 (1969): 251-260.

Ramanujam, Varun, and Hamsa Balakrishnan. "Estimation of Arrival-departure Capacity Tradeoffs in Multi-airport Systems." Proceedings of the 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Shanghai, China, December 2009.
10 Historical roots of engineering systems No readings
11 System and product design

Anderson, P. W. "More is Different." Science 177, no. 4047 (1972): 393-396.

Jackson, Michael. "Power and Limitations of Formal Methods for Software Fabrication." AIT Conference, February 11, 1987.

Ji, Haifeng, Maria C. Yang, and Tomonori Honda. "A Probabilistic Approach for Extracting Design Preferences from Design Team Discussion." ASME 2007 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, September 4-7, 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Yang, Maria C. "Observation on Concept Generation and Sketching in Engineering Design." Research in Engineering Design 20, no. 1 (2009): 1-11.

"Wanted: Green Engineers." The Economist, November 13, 2009.
12 Product and policy evaluation

Levenson, Michael. "Patrick, Kirk at Odds over Wind Farm." The Boston Globe, November 28, 2009.

Kochan, Thomas A., and Saul A. Rubinstein. "Toward a Stakeholder Theory of the Firm: The Saturn Partnership." Organization Science 11, no. 4 (2000): 67-386.

Gregory, Robin, and Ralph L. Keeney. "Creating Policy Alternatives Using Stakeholder Values." Management Science 40, no. 8 (1994): 1035-1048.

Ross, Adam M., Donna H. Rhodes, and Daniel E. Hastings. "Defining Changeability: Reconciling Flexibility, Adaptability, Scalability, Modifiability, and Robustness for Maintaining System Lifecycle Value." Systems Engineering 11, no. 3 (2008): 246-262.
13 Engineering systems analysis and wrap-up

Schwarz, Martin A. "The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research." Journal of Cell Science 121, no. 11 (2008): 1771.

Buy at Amazon Simon, Herbert A., ed. "The Architecture of Complexity: Hierarchic Systems." Chapter 8 in The Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780262691918.

Magee, Christopher L. "Towards Quantification of the Role of Materials Innovation in Overall Technological Development." Draft paper, 2009.

Optional

These papers are posted for reference only because they contain some of the same figures as in the Magee (2009) draft.

Koh, Heebyung, and Christopher L. Magee. "A Functional Approach for Studying Technological Progress: Application to Information Technology." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 73, no. 9 (2006): 1061-1083.

———. "A Functional Approach for Studying Technological Progress: Extension to Energy Technology." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 75, no. 6 (2008): 735-758.