Who: Michael J. Tarr
When: MW 8:30a-9:50a¹
Where: Metcalf Research 225

¹You have probably noticed that this class is at 8:30 in the morning. This is good for you! Really. If people are agreeable, we can put together a signup sheet for goodies every week. Moreover, if people want, maybe we can arrange for a coffee delivery for every class.

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The actual syllabus exists as a public google calendar entitled COGS 1940.

You can subscribe to it (if you use iCal or something like it) through this link.

Alternative, you can get the XML feed through this link.

You can view the syllabus on-line through this link.

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Course requirements:

• Participation and attendance
• Presentation and lead of class discussion for 1-2 papers that you find and identify as related to the topic of the week. Typically such presentations will take place on a Wednesday, where there are assigned readings I have picked for the Monday of that same week.
• A "grant proposal" of no more than seven (7) pages, Times New Roman, 12 pt, 1" margins. Due the last day of class IN CLASS - Wednesday, December 10, 2008.
  
  This proposal should roughly follow the format of the NIH "EUREKA" program as follows:
  
  Research plan: The research plan is limited to seven pages. It should be self-contained, since appendices and updates are not allowed. Except in unusual circumstances, multiple aims are inappropriate, since the research plan should be focused on verifying a hypothesis or solving a problem. Keep the Specific Aims, Background and Significance, and Preliminary Studies sections extremely brief - no more than 1-2 paragraphs for each. In the Research Design and Methods section, the applicant should address the following points. Applications will be evaluated by review panels that represent a diversity of scientific interests and do not necessarily have expertise in the PI’s specific field.  Therefore, jargon must be avoided. Explain the challenge, the potential impact, and the approach in language that scientists in other fields can understand.
  
  
  1. The challenge: What is the hypothesis or problem that will be addressed? If you are testing an unconventional, exceptionally novel hypothesis, how does it challenge the standard paradigm?
  2. The potential impact: Why is testing the hypothesis or solving the problem important? How broad is the potential impact? What community will be affected? What it the size of that community? Will the potential impact on that community be major?
  3. The approach (limit, three pages): How will you attempt to verify the novel hypothesis, or solve the problem? Provide enough information that reviewers can determine what, in general, you are proposing to do, but do not include a detailed experimental plan. If it is your methodology that is novel, what is unconventional and exceptionally innovative about your approach? How does your approach differ from what other investigators have attempted to do?
     
     
  Literature cited: limited to one page. Note that the seven page limit for the Research Plan does not include the Literature Cited section.
  

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About the readings. Almost all of the readings will be PDFs of scientific articles. I did order two books for the class, but not clear how much we will use them, so hold off buying them unless you really want to own them. I will try to put as many of the PDFs as I can on the following sFTP site and provide access information for you at the first class.

site ID: chutzpah.cog.brown.edu
user: cogs1940

FileZilla is a free sFTP client with versions for the mac, windows, and linux.

Cyberduck is a nice (and also free) sFTP client for mac only.

WinSCP is a nice (and also free) sFTP client for windows.