Courses tagged with "Gravitation" (12)

While the advances in genomics promise to usher a new era in medical practice and create a major paradigm shift in patient care, the ethical, legal and social impact of genomic medicine will be equally significant. The information and potential use of genomic discoveries are no longer issues left for scientists and medical professionals to handle, but have become ones for the public at large. Rarely a day passes without a genomics-related story reported in the media. By the end of this course, students will be able to better understand the field of genomics; be familiar with various online databases and resources; and understand and appreciate the medical, social, ethical, and legal issues associated with the availability of personal genomic information.

Given the diversity of the topics and the specific expertise required to cover each, this is a unique cross-disciplinary course where faculty from different disciplines including genetics, computational sciences, bioinformatics, genetic counseling, bioethics, law, and business will participate in lecturing. We have assembled a team of experts from various departments at Georgetown University and other institutions, to teach this comprehensive online genomics course.

For a detailed description of the weekly topics, see the course outline.

Turn back if you would see your shores again.
Do not set forth upon the deep,
for, losing sight of me, you would be lost.
-Paradiso, Canto II, lines 4-6

Joy is the business of Paradiso, that much is clear; but could there be a more mysterious word in the whole realm of human imagination than “Joy?” “Joy” boggles the human imagination because it asks us to follow the vector of hope to its maximal extension and intention, until it arrives at that point which Dante locates “nel mezzo,” at the very center of everything, at that point where every centripetal and centrifugal force of both the physical universe of energy and the symbolic universe of creative imagination and meaning first arise and finally return.

From beginning to end, the Pilgrim’s progress through Paradiso is enabled and guided by his enactment of the role to which he consented in the climactic episode of the Purgatorio in the garden of the Earthly Paradise. Now leaving Earth behind and beneath, the Pilgrim is transformed into the disciple; specifically, the disciple of Beatrice. She now becomes his true path, la diritta via, along which he gradually discovers the Joy that Christianity identifies as the hope of Resurrection.

Dante’s Paradiso maps the physics of freedom, tracing a universal history of meaning. Just as there is a physics of matter and energy, there is a physics of freedom governing the evolutionary history of hope which directs the human search for meaning in every person’s life and in all human culture. In this universe, meaning functions as does light in the physical universe, acting as its absolute measure and enforcing its most basic law—the law of relational identity, where “all are responsible to all for all.” Like the principle of relativity in the physics of energy, relational identity means that each personal existence has historical reality only in relation to all other personal identities.

Almost everyone agrees that the poetry of the Paradiso is sublime. Sublimity, however, is a highly rarefied and strenuously acquired taste. This is why Dante himself warns us in the second canto of the Paradiso that unless we have become used to eat the “bread of Angels,” we should turn back and not attempt to follow him on this final leg of his journey, and we as modern-day readers might well be tempted here to turn back as the Pilgrim himself was tempted in the second canto of the Inferno. But to paraphrase Virgil’s response then, which both encouraged and challenged, “Why be so afraid to reach for what your heart most hopes for; where else do you have to turn?”

In this course, you will be asked to participate in learning activities on both edX and on MyDante, an innovative platform for deep reading that emphasizes mindfulness and contemplative reading habits as key to deriving lasting meaning from poetic texts. The pedagogical approach of the course goes beyond mere academic commentary on the poem as literature; it introduces the reader to a way of thinking about the meaning of the poem at a personal level. This module is the third of three modules that compose the full course. Part 1 (Vita Nuova and Inferno) and Part 2 (Purgatorio) of the course are available as archived versions on edX and MyDante. This course features Robert and Jean Hollander's contemporary translations of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, permission courtesy of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. The print editions contain valuable notes and commentary which are highly recommended as companions to the course materials.

This course will address introductory electricity and magnetism topics (using calculus) from a standpoint of continually asking ‘how do we know’, addressing this using experimental evidence, conceptual logic, derivation, and application of equations. Students will be exposed to how these topics relate to research at Georgetown University. Teachers taking this course will be exposed to the pedagogical choices made and resources for use in their own classrooms..

Learn more about our High School and AP* Exam Preparation Courses

* Advanced Placement and AP are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, these offerings.

Who are the winners and losers of globalization? What should be done to improve outcomes for all?

This course will examine how the spread of trade, investment, and technology across borders affects firms, workers, and communities in developed and developing countries. It investigates who gains from globalization and who is hurt or disadvantaged by globalization. Global experts from public and private sectors share insights on current trends and challenges. Course participants will develop their global acumen and will learn about issues faced by leaders in today’s international business and public policy environment.  

Students will question for themselves the meaning of human freedom, responsibility and identity by reading and responding to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The Comedy, which is richly steeped in the medieval culture of the 14th century, still speaks vividly to modern readers struggling with the question, “who am I?” Dante, as a Florentine, a poet, a lover, and religious believer, struggled with the same question in each facet of his life before coming to a moment of vision that wholly transformed him as a person.

As a 21st century reader, you will encounter the poem in a novel online environment that integrates knowledge from the disciplines of literature, history, psychology, philosophy, and theology with modern technology. You will be guided through the poem by means of the "MyDante" Project, an online environment developed by Professor Ambrosio in collaboration with the Georgetown University Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), which will aid your own contemplative engagement with the poem. Alone and with the edX community, you will reflect on both Dante's interpretation of freedom and how it functions in the formation of personal identity, and the problem of finding appropriate metaphors to discuss these issues in our modern life.

You, the modern reader, will only understand the full implications of Dante's poetry if you participate with it in a way that is personal and is genuinely contemplative. You will discover that contemplative reading goes beyond the literal meaning, and even beyond the traditional allegorical and interpreted meaning, to apply every possible meaning contained in the text to your own life and identity. Through the MyDante platform, you will learn to know yourself in your own historical, personal, and spiritual contexts as you journey towards your understanding of your personal freedom and identity.

Global Business in Practice helps you understand the impact globalization has on global trade and how companies need to react. Business schools are very good at compiling theories; we add value by combining those theories with the practical realities faced by top executives and exploring the management of global business from their perspectives. Leading industry experts will be featured throughout the course, including:

• Joseph P. Baratta, Global Head of Private Equity at Blackstone;
• Maximo J. Blandon, Managing Director at Stephens Inc.;
• Mark G. Del Rosso, Executive Vice President & COO of Audi of America;
• Thomas J. DeRosa, CEO and Director of Welltower;
• Fabrizio Freda, President & CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies;
• Franck J. Moison, Vice Chairman at Colgate-Palmolive;
• Roxana Pierce, Of Counsel at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP;
• Monica Vidal, Partner at MVS Global Consulting Services;
• Stephanie von Friedeburg, CIO and VP for Information and Technology Solutions at the World Bank Group.

You will understand the horizontal nature of practical problem solving rather than the vertical work and learning that traditionally happens in functional silos.

Our goal is that, through this course, you will come to explicitly understand that globalization affects every country regardless of its economic, political or social situation. In this context, as countries endeavor to adapt their policies to new demands, companies deploy strategies to attain an increasingly globally integrated production system. The globalized world forces us to seek and develop appropriate ways to undergo this process. Today, discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of globalization are insignificant and unimportant in the face of the great need to determine the essential conditions for countries, companies and individuals to really benefit from it.

A fundamental knowledge of core business disciplines is clearly a “must” for aspiring global leaders, but the complexity of the global world requires us to push the envelope and extend the limits of what is possible. Join us as we explore the future of global business leadership.

Now I shall sing the second kingdom,
there where the soul of man is cleansed,
made worthy to ascend to Heaven.
-Purgatorio, Canto I, lines 4-6

While Hell is “black, confined, stinking, noisy, and suffocating, the great Mountain of Purgatory rises in pure sunlit solitude out of the windswept southern sea.” (Sayers, Purgatorio; Introduction)  Dante has undergone a conversion which has, literally, turned his world upside down.

Sadly, the majority of Dante’s readers do not accompany him beyond his escape from the Inferno, in part, perhaps, because of an instinctive anticipation that when the excitement of adventure is over, then the hard work of maturation must begin. Indeed, there is work aplenty on Mount Purgatorio, but there is also so much more. There is day and night, labor and rest, waking and dreaming, all the rhythms of diurnal living; but above all, there is the delight of hope. All that the penitent souls suffer here, they undergo in the eagerness of passionate yearning to be healed of the wounds of sin inflicted on them as part of the universal heritage of humanity. Purgatory is a “school of contemplation,” where the healing of wounds coincides with learning to suffer the weight of responsibility for one’s own identity as a person. For those willing to undertake the steep ascent of Dante’s seven-story Mountain, nowhere in the legacy of human culture is the process of becoming a “whole person” more closely observed or rendered with deeper psychological and social insight than in the cantos of Dante’s Purgatorio.

For us as modern readers, Mount Purgatorio is a steep ascent indeed, and if fewer of us accept this challenging invitation than do for the careen through Hell, then it should come as no surprise for us to learn of the untold years, centuries perhaps, that the souls whom Dante meets there require to complete their climb. A realistic willingness to suffer consciously and voluntarily, motivated by authentic hope, is hardly recognized as a possibility by most of us today for whom security and prosperity are accepted as the unqualified goals of our striving. Even to consider an alternative of the sort which Dante offers us in the Purgatorio is already a notable achievement, but one which the imaginative power of Dante’s poetry here places within our reach. Do not let the opportunity pass you by.

In this course, you will be asked to participate in learning activities on both edX and on MyDante, an innovative platform for deep reading that emphasizes mindfulness and contemplative reading habits as key to deriving lasting meaning from poetic texts. We begin on September 28 with an optional reading week. If you have not previously worked with the MyDante platform and are not familiar with the Contemplative Reading approach to the text which it is meant to support, the week offers a chance for you to become acquainted with MyDante and the practice of contemplative reading before we begin the course in earnest on October 5. Equally important, if you have not already read Inferno, we strongly suggest you do so before beginning Purgatorio. It is possible to read, understand and enjoy Purgatorio without having read the Inferno, but it is also true that familiarity with the first part of the journey will increase both your understanding and your enjoyment of the second. Finally, if you were with us for the Inferno, then we urge you to read through the Purgatorio in the reading mode of MyDante, or even as much as you can, during this week. The basic premise of contemplative reading is that re-reading is the best way to read. Try it; we are very sure you will agree.

Terrorism has gone from a persistent yet marginal security concern to one of the most important security problems of our day. There are few countries that do not suffer from some form of terrorism. Though many attempts at terrorism fail, some groups wage lengthy and bloody campaigns and, in exceptional cases, kill hundreds or even thousands in pursuit of their ends.

This course on terrorism will explore the nuances involved in defining terrorism, the nature of Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic State, and other important groups, the effectiveness of different counterterrorism tools, terrorist recruiting, counterterrorism and the rule of law, the political context in South Asia and the Middle East, and the terrorist use of technology.

For those interested in an abbreviated version of this course, the 3-section course Terrorism and Counterterrorism: An Introduction is available here.

Terrorism has gone from a persistent yet marginal security concern to one of the most important security problems of our day. There are few countries that do not suffer from some form of terrorism. Though many attempts at terrorism fail, some groups wage lengthy and bloody campaigns and, in exceptional cases, kill hundreds or even thousands in pursuit of their ends.

This course on terrorism will explore the nuances involved in defining terrorism, the nature of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other important groups, the effectiveness of different counterterrorism tools, terrorist recruiting, counterterrorism and the rule of law, the political context in the Middle East, and the terrorist use of technology.

For those interested in a more extended version of the course, the full 7-section course Terrorism and Counterterrorism is available here.

With the continuous generation of massive amounts of biomedical data on a daily basis, whether from research laboratories or clinical labs, we need to improve our ability to understand and analyze the data in order to take full advantage of its power in scientific discoveries and patient care. For non-bioinformaticians, “handling” big data remains a daunting task. This course was designed to facilitate the understanding, analysis, and interpretation of biomedical big data to those in the biomedical field with limited or no significant experience in bioinformatics. The goal of this course is to “demystify” the process of analyzing biomedical big data through a series of lectures and online hands-on training sessions and demos. You will learn how to use publicly available online resources and tools for genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data analysis, as well as other analytic tools and online resources. This course is funded by a research grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Initiative.

Quantum Mechanics for Everyone is a four-week long MOOC that teaches the basic ideas of quantum mechanics with a method that requires no complicated math beyond taking square roots (and you can use a calculator for that). Quantum theory is taught without “dumbing down” any of the material, giving you the same version experts use in current research. We will cover the quantum mystery of the two-slit experiment and advanced topics that include how to see something without shining light on it (quantum seeing in the dark) and bunching effects of photons (Hong-Ou-Mandel effect).

To get a flavor for the course and see if it is right for you, watch "Let's get small", which shows you how poorly you were taught what an atom looks like, and "The fallacy of physics phobia." 

Please note: the four sections of this course will be released on a weekly basis from April 18, 2017 to May 9, 2017, when all the course material will be available and the course will become fully self-paced.

Should we clone humans? What should we think of the coming genetic revolution? How much control should we have over how and when we die? When does medical treatment turn into medical enhancement — and should we care? Is rationing health care good, bad, necessary — or all of the above?

This course will explore fundamental moral issues that arise in medicine, health, and biotechnology. Some are as old as life itself: the vulnerability of illness, the fact of death. Some are new, brought on by a dizzying pace of technology that can unsettle our core ideas about human nature and our place in the world. And nearly all intersect with issues of racial and gender equality, as well as policies affecting the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Designed to introduce students to the range of issues that define bioethics, together with core concepts and skills, this course should be of interest to undergraduates, health care professionals, policy makers, and anyone interested in philosophy or ethics.

Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.