The course will introduce students to statistical models and mthods for longitudinal data, i.e., repeatedly measured data over time or under different conditions. The topics will include design and sample size calculation, Hotelling's T^2, multivariate analysis of variance, multivariate linear regression (Generalized linear models), models for correlation, unbalanced repeated measurements, Mixed effects models, EM algorithm, methods for non-normally distributed data, Generalized estimating equations, Generalized linear mixed models, and Missing data.
In this course, you will learn to design and build relational databases in MySQL and to write and optimize queries using the SQL programming language. Application of skills learned in this course will be geared toward research and data science settings in the healthcare field; however, these skills are transferable to many industries and application areas. You will begin the course examining the pitfalls of using Excel spreadsheets as a data storage tool and then learn how to build properly-designed relational databases to eliminate the issues related to spreadsheets and maintain data integrity when storing and modifying data. You will then learn two aspects of the SQL programming language: 1) the data manipulation language (DML), which allows you to retrieve data from and populate data into database tables (e.g., SELECT, INSERT INTO, DELETE, UPDATE, etc.), and 2) the data definition language (DDL), which allows you to create and modify tables in a database (e.g., CREATE, ALTER, DROP, etc.). You will additionally learn how to optimize SQL queries for best performance, use advanced SQL functions, and utilize SQL within common statistical software programs: R and SAS.
Concern about the retreat of democracy, democratic recession and/or democratic backsliding are proliferating in the political theoretical and comparative politics literature. While domestic and external threats to democracy and reverse waves are not new, there is widespread agreement that today even long-consolidated, wealthy democracies are now at risk and that new dynamics of de-democratization are at play. This course will involve an in-depth study of the political theory and comparative politics literature on the relevant concepts and dynamics: transition, democratization, de-democratization, democratic backsliding, hybridization, “post-democracy” and the assumptions undergirding them. We will discuss the various concepts of democracy and regime used or presupposed in the relevant literature and assess how these have evolved. The purpose of the first part of the course is to rethink the basic concepts and theories regarding democracy breakdown, transitions to democracy, democratic consolidation, backsliding and hybridization of democratic regimes and to clarify the conceptual and political issues regarding thresholds, cycles, and the like. The last third of the course will focus on cycles of democratization, de-democratization and re-democratization in the case of the U.S.: the oldest representative constitutional democracy and the one most typically taken as the exemplar of a consolidated democratic regime.
The course is designed to introduce you to the field of public management. It is a practical course organized around the tools managers may use to influence the behavior of their organizations. The course also discusses the political environment in which public managers must interact.
General aspects of normal human growth and development from viewpoints of physical growth, cellular growth and maturation, and adjustments made at birth; the impact of altered nutrition on these processes. Prenatal and postnatal malnutrition, the role of hormones in growth; relationships between nutrition and disease in such areas as anemia, obesity, infection, and carbohydrate absorption.
Data is most useful when it can tell a story. Health analytics merges technologies and skills used to deliver business, clinical and programmatic insights into the complex components that drive medical outcomes, costs and oversight. By focusing on business intelligence and developing tools to evaluate clinical procedures, devices, and programs, organizations can use comparative and outcomes data to strengthen financial performance. This information can improve the way healthcare is evaluatedand delivered for better outcomes across the spectrum of health industries.
In this course, students will learn SAS as a tool to manipulate and analyze healthcare data and begin to understand what clinical and public health interventions work best for improving health, for example. Students will learn how to organize and analyze data to inform the practices of healthcare providers and policymakers to make evidence-based resource allocation decisions.Comparative & Effectiveness Outcomes Research (CEOR) certificate students will take this course inpreparation for the capstone class.SAS basics (e.g., creating SAS datasets and new variables, sorting, merging, reporting) and advanced statistics (e.g., using a logistical regression to create propensity scores for matched cohort analyses) will be covered.
Fall: Review of current literature providing complementary information pertinent to other nutrition areas, with a view to developing a critical approach to the assimilation of scientific information. Spring: Obesity: Etiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Controversies involving regulation of weight and energy balance. Interaction between genetics and the environment are considered as well as clinical implications of our current knowledge.
This is an advanced graduate seminar in Economic Sociology looking at new developments in this field. It addresses the disciplinary division of labor in which economists study value and sociologists study values; and it rejects the pact whereby economists study the economy and sociologists study social relations in which they are embedded.
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Applications of behavioral insights are expanding rapidly across civic, medical, social, corporate, educational, and economic professions. This class covers the underlying theories for behavioral science, using scientific and real-world examples of applications from multiple disciplines and locations. The course will also cover methods for behavioral policy implementation and evaluation, focusing particularly on healthcare policy perspectives. Students will learn a broad range of strategies through a highly interactive format, taught partially in a classroom setting in addition to remote asynchronous and synchronous sessions. Students will gain experience designing and developing their own evidence-based behavioral interventions as a part of a group project.
Applications of behavioral insights are expanding rapidly across civic, medical, social, corporate, educational, and economic professions. This class covers the underlying theories for behavioral insights, using scientific and real-world examples of applications from multiple disciplines and locations. The course will also cover methods for behavioral implementation and evaluation, focusing particularly on healthcare policy perspectives. Students will learn a broad range of strategies through a highly interactive format, taught partially in a classroom setting in addition to remote asynchronous and synchronous sessions. Students will gain experience designing and developing their own evidence- based behavioral interventions as a part of a semester-long project.
The course is taught in three phases. The first phase will introduce fundamentals of behavioral science and evidence-based policy. Students will then spend the majority of the course on examples of behavioral insights such as nudges in practice, in a healthcare context and beyond. The course will end with sessions on practical applications, where students will learn to identify appropriate situations for behavioral interventions and produce a final project in a chosen context.
This is the third required course in the advanced practice sequence. Focuses on exploration of the knowledge bases and research issues for the understanding and supply of (1) the transactions between people and their environment and (2) related practice.
Aspects of carbohydrate, lipid, protein, and energy metabolism relevant to the understanding of nutrition at cellular and organism levels. Biochemical and physiological aspects of vitamin and mineral metabolismand action during both normal conditions and deficiency toxicity states.
What happens to a body stilled in space, when it takes a shape and holds it? How does its relationship to public space change? How is its transformation attenuated when the body is in formation with other bodies, a breathing still life of people and props? This Graduate Seminar in Performance and Related Media will use the question of a body’s stillness as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between dance, sculpture, collaborative movement, and performance art. Through core readings and writings, we will discuss unique possibilities of representation and challenges this form enables, and the prominent role it has been taking within the visual arts in recent years. Students will engage with a variety of aesthetic strategies and formal techniques such as movement workshops, sensory exercises, wearable sculptures, collaboration, scores, and group meditation. Studio work will focus on concrete intersections between the body and the object, and case studies chosen to encourage students to think of movement as a form of resistance, and to consider the political implication of collaborative work that unfolds over time. Performativity will be defined widely, and no prior experience is required.
This graduate seminar aims to introduce students to Freud and Freudian Psychoanalysis and the integration of both in critical theory. The main question the seminar aims to study is the formation of identity in psychoanalysis and how it relates to civilization and culture more generally, whether in its gender, sexual, or national configurations. The influence of Social Darwinism and Developmentalism more generally on Freudian psychoanalysis will be discussed as well as the importance of related temporal concepts deployed in psychoanalysis' insistence on the divide between primitivism and culture. We will discuss a number of major scholarly works engaging Freud's theories on all these questions and their relevance to social and cultural analysis.
This course provides a primer on the regulatory and legal matters on financial services industry in general and blockchain-based applications and digital assets in particular. Given the increasing complexity of such issues, we will use a combination of lectures, concrete case studies, and class discussions to address cryptocurrencies and digital tokens and assets, including stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Coins (CBDCs) from legal, regulatory, policy, business, economic, and privacy perspectives.
The course will introduce students to the primary legal framework in the United States, in particular CFTC, SEC, FINCEN, FINRA, IRS, and state regulators. Having an understanding of the functions and roles of each of these regulatory bodies is important for product offerings as well as for how blockchain entrepreneurs and lawyers have to navigate the complexity of the domain. Students will gain a perspective of how the regulatory uncertainty creates risks, opportunities, and exposure, in particular in the context of jurisdictional and geographic regulatory differences and the effort of certain states (i.e., New York State, Wyoming) from both legal and business viewpoints.
This is the first in a series of 4 courses designed to educate students about the multiple dimensions of professional practice in contemporary physical therapy. These courses will explore the professional roles of the physical therapist as a clinician, educator, and advocate. This will be the first in a series of courses that will address trans-curricular themes including leadership, service, health promotion, advocacy, teaching & learning, interprofessional collaboration and teamwork, cultural humility, and self-reflection, culminating in the creation of a digital portfolio. The course series will include broad exposure to a variety of professional and personal development experiences and expect more in-depth engagement in the student’s chosen area of focus.
This first course in the professional leadership and practice series will explore the process of professional identity formation, including exploration of attitudes and biases, personality, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, authentic leadership, health & well-being practices, and inclusive excellence. The course will also explore structural and racial barriers to health and healthcare. Students will broaden their understanding of physical therapy practice, structure, and governance of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), the APTA vision and core values, and legislative action at the national, state, and local levels. Students will be introduced to the core competencies for interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on personal strengths and goals and develop a personal development and professional leadership plan. An overview of the Digital Professional Portfolio project will be included.
This course builds on the core Global Economic Environment curriculum to equip students with toolkits for applying open-economy macro frameworks to the analysis of the fundamental forces shaping economic turning points and the development of public-market trading strategies around them.
Key concepts in global macro investing are delivered through a mix of interactive lectures, case-study discussions, and directed conversations with practitioners. The course is structured in three sections: (1) a review and extension of core macroeconomic principles, an annotated discussion of key macroeconomic indicators, a structured look at the principal features of major risk assets (i.e., equities, currencies, fixed income, and commodities), and the development of templates for global macro trading strategies and risk management; (2) case studies around recent, disruptive major global macro inflection points; and (3) the application of the course’s key learning objectives to the development of broad global macro trading strategies around prevailing macroeconomic conditions, special cases, and instances of asset mispricing.
This course will provide introductory knowledge and skills for students wishing to pursue activities in markets-focused macroeconomic research and strategy, global tactical asset allocation, the application of macroeconomic overlays on a wide range of investment platforms, strategic planning, and policy development.
This two-semester course shows students that it is both possible and useful to think about public policy rigorously to see what assumptions work; to understand how formal models operate; to question vagueness and cliches; and to make sophisticated ethical arguments. An important goal of the class is to have students work in groups to apply microeconomic concepts to current public policy issues having to do with urban environmental and earth systems. The course includes problem sets designed to teach core concepts and their application. In the spring semester, the emphasis is on the application of concepts to analyze contemporary policy problems. Some time is also devoted to international trade and regulation, and industrial organization issues. Students not only learn microeconomic concepts, but also how to explain them to decision-makers. Student groups take on specific earth system policy issues, analyze options through the use of microeconomic concepts, and then make oral presentations to the class.
This two-semester course demonstrates that it is both possible and useful to think about public policy rigorously: to examine underlying assumptions; to understand how formal models operate; to question vagueness and clichés; and to make sophisticated ethical arguments. An important goal of the class is to have students work in groups as they apply microeconomic concepts to current public policy issues having to do with urban environmental and earth systems. The course includes problem sets designed to teach core concepts and their application. In the spring semester, the emphasis is on the application of concepts to analyze contemporary policy problems. Some time is also devoted to international trade and regulation, and industrial organization issues. Students not only learn microeconomic concepts, but also how to explain them to decision-makers. Student groups take on specific earth system policy issues, analyze options through the use of microeconomic concepts, and then make oral presentations to the class.
From 1970 until today, America’s prison and jail population has increased sevenfold, from some 300,000 to around 2.2 million adults and children behind bars. Accounting for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants, but about 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated inhabitants, the United States is the most incarcerating society in human history. The U.S. federal and state governments imprison more people and at higher rates than do any other governments on the planet, and they do so today more than they did at any other period in American history.
This astounding amount of human confinement (commonly called “mass incarceration”) disproportionately impacts the polity’s poorest communities of color—especially young Black males—which suffer from chronic conditions and infectious disease; face higher mortality rates; and experience, because of criminal records, less opportunity to secure gainful employment, stable housing, access to safety net programs, and education. Female incarceration over the past few decades has grown at twice the rate of male incarceration, and black women, specifically, are twice as likely as white women to serve time. Imprisonment exposes people to a wide range of circumstances proving detrimental to long-term physical and mental health, like inadequate sanitation, poor ventilation, and solitary confinement. And most formerly incarcerated people return to their communities with deep wounds and new traumas resulting from incarcerated life and from isolation through long separations from families and social supports.
This course sits at the intersection of public health, policy, and law. The course will explore the full spectrum of causes and costs of mass incarceration as a public health crisis. This course will examine how exposures to different structures of the American criminal punishment apparatus (e.g., law enforcement, jail, prison, or detention centers, community supervision) shape the health of people, families, and society. Observing mass incarceration as an epidemic, this course will adopt a useful public-health model of prevention to contemplate a concerted approach consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies for unwinding mass human imprisonment while advancing enhanced public health for the nation’s most disempowered members. This course will pay special attention to acutely at-risk populations, including detained youth and youth of incarcerated adults, pregnant incarcerated people, and the elderly. And the role that
The Course introduces students to the fundamentals of case competitions and prepares them to compete in select case competitions over the course of the year. Case competitions afford students the opportunity to apply classroom learning to dynamic health care organizational and industry problems. The Course covers topics ranging from the framework for breaking down cases to common analytical techniques and presentation skills. We will build the foundational skills for students to prepare and deliver comprehensive, professional analyses in competitive settings.
This course examines the underlying economics of successful business strategy: the strategic imperatives of competitive markets, the sources and dynamics of competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, and the organizational implementation of business strategy.
The course combines case discussion and analysis (approximately two thirds) with lectures (one third). The emphasis is on the ability to apply a small number of principles effectively and creatively, not the mastery of detailed aspects of the theory. The course offers excellent background for all consultants, managers and corporate finance generalists.
This course, during the third year of the DPT curriculum, is the final in a series of 4 courses designed to educate students about the multiple dimensions of professional practice in contemporary physical therapy. These courses will explore the professional roles of the PT as a clinician, educator and advocate and address trans-curricular themes including leadership, service, health promotion, advocacy, teaching & learning, interprofessional teamwork and self-reflection, culminating in the creation of a digital portfolio. The course series will include broad exposure to a variety of professional and personal development experiences and expect more in-depth engagement in the student’s chosen area of focus.
This course serves as a hands-on introduction to both the aesthetics and craft of cinematography geared for the non-cinematographer. The syllabus is designed to deepen students' understanding of the craft and develop the communication skills that enhance a filmmaker's collaboration with a Cinematographer.
Health promotion and disease prevention have a major role to play in health policy, and the case for investing in this area is now stronger than ever. Chronic diseases are one of the main causes of death and disability worldwide. While many associated risk factors are largely preventable, prevention policies are severely underused, partly because lack of strong evidence to support the economic return on investment on interventions.
The aim of this course is to provide an economic perspective on the challenges to improve health promotion and chronic disease prevention. The first part of the course explores how economics can contribute to our understanding of the crucial role of prevention to improve the health of our society. We will discuss basic concepts and theories, such as externalities, public goods, economic incentives, and cost-benefit analysis. The second part of the course consists of a review of the empirical literature and analytical models used to evaluate prevention policies, exploring available evidence on some of the most prevalent chronic diseases with a focus on how to understand the economic GDP and societal ROI and how to use this information to inform and conduct policy. We will also discuss whether there are better methods to gather evidence than those currently employed.
We will provide a framework for understanding the economic factors underlying the health care system and the interaction of its agents. For several reasons, standard economic models are not adequate to understand markets for health care. For example, it is difficult for the consumer/ patient to evaluate the quality of the services received. Costs are uncertain, and insurance reduces the incentive of the consumer/patient or physician to seek the most economical means of treatment.We will focus primarily on the structure and economics of health insurance and the demand for health care, pricing of drugs and hospital services, cost-benefit analyses employed by payers and consumers of health care products and services, mechanisms used for paying physicians and its impact on the provision of care, and the role of information in the selection and provision of medical goods and services."
The Course expands on the original case competition fundamentals course, offering students opportunities to mentor, teach and hone their analytical and case writing skills. Case competitions afford students the opportunity to apply classroom learning to dynamic health care organizational and industry problems. Students in their second year of the course will be asked to teach sections of the class and to research and write their own healthcare business case.
Who gets what and why? Policy makers and stakeholders in the healthcare space must make difficult decisions involving trade-offs that are often controversial. By exploring a series of ethical frameworks and contentious healthy policy issues, students will learn to apply a systematic process of ethical analysis to justify policies in a legitimate way. Through a dynamic teaching approach involving case studies, role playing and active discussion, we will explore how acceptability and feasibility of controversial policies can be enhanced to promote health equity using tools from distributive justice, procedural justice and bioethics. Topics of discussion include migrant health/migration policy, rationing at the VA, using algorithmic fairness in policy design and nudging in the safety-net.
This course reviews the financing and organization of health systems in wealthy nations with an emphasis on how to evaluate their performance. We discuss alternative perspectives for studying health systems and how much of the literature draws on selective evidence to evaluate them. Students will focus on a health system abroad of interest to them for which they can find descriptive reports and data published by the Commonwealth Fund or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As students conduct their own research, we will discuss different approaches to the empirical analysis of health system performance in selected nations. Finally, students will assess the performance of the health system they have chosen to study by comparing it to the health system in the U.S. or another wealthy nation. Over the course of seven three-hour sessions, students will develop a deeper understanding of the extent to which available evidence supports or refutes widely shared views of different health systems.
Individual projects in composition.
This course explores the portrayal of the Vietnam War in American and Vietnamese cinema. Students will analyze and compare films from both countries, examining themes such as patriotism, disillusionment, national identity, resistance and the human cost of war. The course also investigates how each country portrayed the other through its cinema, and the impact of cinema on public opinion and historical understanding of the conflict in both countries. We will also examine differences in cinematic and storytelling techniques used in each country, unpacking cinema as art, commercialism and propaganda. This course combines film screenings (in and out of class), discussions and critical analysis to provide a deeper understanding of how cinema in America and Vietnam were used to portray the same war.
This is the third of four didactic courses that discuss the various methods and techniques of anesthesia administration with an emphasis on the physiological basis for practice. Alterations in homeostatic mechanisms and advanced anesthetic management throughout the perioperative continuum of obstetric and pediatric care, and patients undergoing cardiac surgery are emphasized. Cultural humility will be incorporated into care plans to develop anesthetic management individualized to patient identities and cultures while including an emphasis on social and cultural health disparities.
This class is intended for students to develop composing skills for creating music “between the keys” (or “outside the keys”) of a traditionally tuned piano or organ. We will be analyzing relevant works and techniques of the present and of the past. Students compose and perform/present their own music influenced by these works and techniques. We will start with “just intonation” and with music independent from Western traditions. Students are free to enroll for “Music beyond 12 tone temperament II” before “Music beyond 12 tone temperament I”. Knowledge of the harmonic row’s intonation, at least until the 17th partial, is mandatory.
This course will first, examine the nature, ingredients and gradations of the extraordinary success of several East Asian economies. The lessons of their experience have been the subject of an extensive literature. The course will introduce students to the main controversies. The second part will illuminate the debate by contrasting the experience and policies of East Asia with stylized trends and overviews of developments in each of the regions of Latin America, South Asia (Indian subcontinent), Sub-Saharan Africa and the transition economies of Europe and Central Asia. These comparisons will be informed by the question of what the lessons of East Asian success are for these other regions.
Macroeconomics is in the news every day. Anyone who pays attention to the news knows that the crash in the US housing market in 2008 caused dramatic perturbations to financial markets all around the world. This, in turn, triggered very strong responses by governments in the US (in particular the Federal Reserve and the Treasury), as well as in other countries. This meltdown in financial markets and the interventions from policymakers raise a number of key questions about the health and the future of the economy in the US and abroad, which we will address in the Global Economic Environment II course.This course is a sequel to the core course Global Economic Environment. Building on the fundamentals introduced in that course, we develop a conceptual framework to explain the complex interactions between macroeconomic policy, asset prices, and business cycle fluctuations. In particular, we examine macroeconomic forecasting, determinants, and implications of budget deficits, the conduct and implementation of monetary policy, and the determinants of inflation in the U.S. and other market economies around the world. Special attention is given to the interactions between macroeconomic forces and asset prices.Since an important goal of this course is for students to become informed and sophisticated consumers of economic news, the issues discussed in this course draw heavily from current events and real-world examples.
Note I: The core course GEE while recommended is not a pre-requisite for taking GEEII. Students who expect to exempt from the core course GEE are recommended to take GEEII instead.
This course aims at providing a well-rounded understanding of the financial development process over time and across countries, with emphasis on emerging economies. Relevant topics will be covered from different perspectives, including the supply and demand sides of financial services; the roles of markets, instruments, and institutions; issues on systemic financial stability and access to financial services; links to financial globalization; and the role of the state. The course will entail active student participation. In particular, (a) students will be expected to review the background reading materials in advance and, on that basis, participate actively in the lecture-based classes; and (b) investigate (as part of a group project) a particular topic of their choice, present the results to the class, and write a short paper. In the process, students should improve their critical thinking, research and communication abilities, and learn new material on financial development.
After briefly reviewing the historic basis for the function of congressional oversight, the course
will review and discuss the sources and applications of congressional powers and tools for
oversight; constitutional, statutory, rule and other limits to the power of Congress to conduct
oversight; the rights and duties of those subject to congressional oversight; parallel proceedings
when oversight occurs with criminal or federal agency investigations; and study special oversight
functions, such as impeachment and special commissions. Classes will involve reviewing actual
congressional oversight investigations and hearings (e.g., Teapot Dome, House Unamerican
Affairs Committee, Watergate, Clinton Impeachment, Trump Impeachments, 9/11 Commission)
and the legal, strategic and ethical issues raised in those proceedings. When appropriate, there
will be a guest or two (e.g. Member of Congress, subject of an oversight inquiry).
This course is about the relationship between two complex and nebulous phenomena in the world: race and institutions.
Race and race-like concepts have been deployed for centuries (at least), often with the purpose of justifying economic, social, or political inequality. The study of Race and Ethnic Politics is well-established in political science, but the majority of this research draws on methods and theories from psychology or public opinion research, which are not generally designed to study
institutions or their effects. But if we accept that race is a social construction, it is largely composed of institutions: formal rules governing what one person may do to another that invoke
"racial identities," informal norms about interpersonal interactions, and the mental habits, attitudes, and beliefs that have developed around them.
The purpose of the course is to explore the implications of defining race as primarily a set of institutions for our understanding of politics. In particular, the course is designed to present repeated exercises in two kinds of analysis: first, assessing what published research (mainly in political science) can tell us about the world, and second, what methods or questions might have
been better suited to illuminate the phenomena that the researchers are interested in.
The course does not have pre-requisites, but readings will involve a variety of political science methods, including experiments, statistical analysis, and game theory. If not already familiar with these methods students are expected to engage thoughtfully with arguments relying on them.
In 1964, Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri fulfilled an unrealized wish of Marcel Duchamp’s by stretching a replica of the Mona Lisa over an ironing board. For her 2017 survey at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Tania Bruguera included a photograph of a urinal she had installed in The Queens Museum, accompanied by the statement: “It’s time to return Duchamp’s urinal to the bathroom.” However we interpret these gestures, separated by more than fifty years, it’s clear that Duchamp’s “reciprocal readymade” endures as a potent model for the transvaluation of artwork and artistic practices into different states and uses.
This is the first 15-week course during the first term of the DPT curriculum and the first clinical courses designed to overview basic patient/client examination and evaluation skills in accordance with the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Guide to Physical Therapy Practice.
Introduction to the patient management model with emphasis on examination is presented in a lecture-lab format. The examination process is detailed including systems review and tests and measures of peripheral nerve integrity, flexibility, motor function, muscle performance, posture, and range of motion. Emphasis is placed on, manual muscle testing and goniometry. Students are introduced to clinical decision-making.
What does interaction have to do to storytelling? How do we tell stories within media that are non-linear, including games, virtual reality, and immersive theater? How can we craft narratives that emerge from the dynamics of interaction, narratives experienced through exploration and choice? What design strategies exist regarding an understanding of character, plot, drama, time, space, and event within interactive fictions? This course will take a close look at the mechanics of storytelling within dynamic media, exploring connections between interactivity and narrative experience. The course will examine examples ranging from the design of Live Action Role Playing games to massively multi-player experiences, from hypertext to tarot cards, from Oculus to Punchdrunk. Content will be delivered through lectures, reading, discussion, case studies, and small studio-based exercises. Elective open to all SOA students.
This course introduces students to the basic principles and practices of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. This field encompasses the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of chemical, physical, and biological hazards arising in and from the workplace, home, and ambient environments. The course content encompasses many diverse aspects of the field such as the inhalation hazards of gases and vapors, the effects of particle size and morphology on aerodynamic behavior, respiratory system deposition, and disease risk, factors influencing dermal permeation of chemicals, biological monitoring for chemicals and their metabolites, and approaches to measurement and associated instrumentation. This course is intended to provide a basic understanding of the field for students in Public Health disciplines, and is the starting point for students who may choose to pursue occupational and environmental hygiene as a career.
This is a first course in capital markets and investments. The course has three principal goals: To introduce the principles of asset valuation from an applied perspective. The majority of the class is concerned with the valuation of financial securities. The valuation issues to be discussed are heavily used in portfolio management and risk management applications. To introduce the following concepts: Arbitrage. The term structure of interest rates. Portfolio theory, risk-control, and diversification. Equilibrium asset pricing models; the CAPM. Efficient and inefficient markets. Performance evaluation. Pricing and hedging basic derivative securities (futures and options) To provide sufficient background knowledge for students seeking an overview of capital markets and an introduction to advanced finance courses.
Molecular epidemiology is an interdisciplinary research approach that incorporates advanced laboratory methods into epidemiology to identify causes of disease and facilitate intervention. It is increasingly utilized as a tool to understand interactions between external ‘environmental’ exposures and genetic and other susceptibility factors, and to identify ‘at-risk’ populations and individuals. This course will cover conceptual and methodological issues in molecular epidemiology including the application of biomarkers to the study of disease causation, risk assessment, and prevention. The course covers principles in the selection and validation of biomarkers, study design and statistical methods in data analysis including gene-environment interactions, biological sample collection, storage, and banking, and current laboratory methods for biomarker analysis. These principles will be illustrated using examples from current molecular epidemiologic research in cancer, neurodevelopment, childhood asthma, screening, risk assessment and disease prevention. Students will gain proficiency and experience in critically evaluating key papers in molecular epidemiologic studies.
Formerly known as Advanced Corporate Finance develops the art and science of optimal strategic decision-making by applying corporate financial theory to cases of financial policy, financial instruments and valuation. In particular, the following topics are studied: cost of capital and capital budgeting, discounted cash flow valuation and financial multiples, payout policy, equity and debt financing, option pricing theory and applications, corporate control and recapitalizations. The classes are structured to maximize the synergy between theory and practice, providing students portable, durable and marketable tools for their internships and careers.
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the molecular events associated with chemically-induced degenerative and proliferative diseases.
The course will describe the major players in Debt Capital Markets, key institutions, broad empirical regularities, and analytical tools that are used for pricing and risk management. Some parts of the course will be analytical while others will be largely institutional. Each session will be organized around one or two key topics. In addition, class notes will be used to supplement and clarify issues. Some selected papers will also be kept in Canvas to serve as background reading for class discussions.Outline of Key Topics:- Overview of Debt Securities: What are debt securities? What are their sources of risk and return? Historical performance of fixed income securities. - Major players and their functions: United States Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, Primary Dealers, Inter-Dealer Brokers (IDB), Rating agencies, Sell-side and Buy-side institutions. - Bond mathematics: a) price and yield conventions, b) PVBP, Duration (modified, effective and key-rate), convexity, and negative convexity. Trading applications: spread trades, bullet vs barbell positions. - Term Structure Theory: Spot rates, forward rates, par yields, modeling interest rates and pricing bonds. - Structural models of default: Modeling credit risk, credit spreads and their behavior, Distance to default, forecasting rating changes, high-yield and investment-grade debt markets - Government, Agency and Corporate markets - Municipal markets - MBS: Structure of MBS markets, prepayments, Option Adjusted Spreads, Pass-through securities, REMICs, risk measures - Asset-backed markets - Derivatives: Treasury futures, Interest Rate Swaps, and Single-name credit default swaps - Clearinghouses vs exchanges vs OTC markets
Successful investing in Equities Markets requires more than just picking stocks given the wide
array of products at a portfolio manager's disposal. Through a combination of lectures, a case
study and guest speakers, this course is intended to provide firsthand experience on how
products like Options, Swaps, Futures, ETFs, and Structured Notes, and are structured, valued,
and used. Although most of the course relates to Equities, there will be some content on
Derivatives on other Asset Classes
Prerequisites: ECON G6411 and G6412. Students will make presentations of original research.
Review of continuum mechanics in Cartesian coordinates; tensor calculus and the calculus of variation; large deformations in curvilinear coordinates; electricity problems and applications.
This course explains the toxic effects of chemicals (including drugs and other agents) on living organisms. An overview of the history, principles, mechanisms and regulatory applications of toxicology is provided. Also, the absorption, distribution and excretion of toxins are described. The toxic effects of chemicals (including cancer) on the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems and development forms the major portion of the course. Members of chemical classes such as solvents, metals, pesticides, air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone), radiation, plants, fungi, venoms and pharmaceuticals are used as examples. Environmental toxicology form the primary emphasis, but aspects of occupational, food, pharmaceutical and clinical toxicology are also included.
An optional addition hour for credit is provided for those students needing a background in anatomy, histology, chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, and the normal physiology of the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems.
In most business circumstances, managers and organizations take decisions that affect each other. We call such situations games." Game Theory provides a framework for analyzing and predicting behaviors and outcomes in situations of strategic interaction. The goal of this course is to provide students with the essential tools of game theory, and demonstrate their use by applying them to a variety business situations and cases."
Prerequisites: G6215 and G6216. Open-economy macroeconomics, computational methods for dynamic equilibrium analysis, and sources of business cycles.
How should society regulate environmental health risks? Some argue that the health of the citizenry is paramount, and that the role of government should be to protect against any possibility of harm. Others back an approach based on a full accounting of the benefits and costs of environmental protection. And in the current political environment, ideological positions sometimes eclipse analysis. These debates occur against a backdrop of uncertainty about the health risks posed by specific environmental insults. In spite of all this ambiguity and complexity, policy happens: congress makes laws, regulatory agencies enforce the law, and most polluters comply.
In this class we will study several frameworks for thinking about these questions. Environmental economics, in the form of benefit-cost analyses, is the primary framing used by the US Federal Government. We will explore its conceptual foundations and its applications in the US regulatory context. In our discussions of the sociology of science perspective, we will examine how environmental health scientists interact with the policy process, and think through how such interactions might be improved. The third perspective is decision theory, and in particular, choice under uncertainty. We will consider the basic analytics of expected value, and some permutations and applications that are germane to the environmental health policy domain. In addition to these conceptual frameworks, we will analyze and interpret cases drawn from recent experiences with environmental health regulation in the United States.
This course is designed to introduce Mailman students to core frameworks for thinking about environmental health policy. The course is open to all students.
Constitutive equations of viscoelastic and plastic bodies. Formulation and methods of solution of the boundary value, problems of viscoelasticity and plasticity.
Through the process of developing, pitching, researching, and writing a treatment for a documentary short, students will develop an overview of the documentary process from development through distribution. The course will touch on research, story, production and post production logistics, legal, financing, budgeting, distribution, and ethical issues in the creation of documentary films.
This class, will primarily focus on the challenges of interpreting and performing Shakespeare.
What should you expect to learn from this class?
1. Develop and refine a high-quality investment process
2. Build background and primary research skills
3. Attain greater awareness and insight into metacognition and psychology in investing
4. Understand the different ways of managing risk in investing
5. Develop and cultivate relationships with industry experts
6. Build relationships with fantastic alumni
There are many ways to make money in the markets and our goal is to provide you
with an investment process/approach that can be applied not just to public investing,
which is the focus of this class, but also to other asset classes.
Speakers: Each class will be supplemented with a guest speaker who is an expert in
their field and in the key topic of each class to further bridge theory and practice.
Speakers will include hedge fund managers, experienced investment analysts, CEOs,
industry experts, and investigative researchers.
Mentors: Each student will be provided a mentor from the industry. We encourage
you to connect with them regularly, utilize their feedback in your work, and build a longterm relationship.
This second course of three consecutive courses focuses on using a systems and developmental approach to expand the knowledge of the advanced practice student. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive multi-modal management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan. Emphasis will be placed on the age specific biopsychosocial variables influencing those health problems and behaviors which are most likely to present, and are most amenable to management in a community setting.
This course applies financial theory to the issues and problems of asset management. In order to understand these issues, we must start with the specific goals, characteristics, and considerations of the asset owner. Asset owners may be individuals (e.g. personal wealth), collective owners (e.g. families or pension funds), charitable endowments and foundations (e.g. Columbia University), corporations, and nations (e.g. sovereign wealth funds). We characterize the properties of asset returns and the nature of various investment strategies to assess how asset management can meet the specific investment goals of asset owners. Asset owners usually delegate management of their portfolios to financial intermediaries, which may invest across a broad array of assets or specialize in a certain investment style or asset class. The delegated nature of investments necessitates understanding the principal-agent issues and market frictions associated with each type of asset class.
Risk Assessment is the process of correlating the amount of exposure (to a chemical, activity, or situation) with expected harm. This Department core course is primarily concerned with toxic substances to which humans are exposed through their environments, in the context of whether and how exposure to such toxicants should be controlled: risk assessment. Toxicological and epidemiological principles are used primarily to provide (uncertain) quantitative estimates of the harm associated with a given level of exposure: dose-response. Using a dose-response relationship necessitates quantifying exposure, an uncertain endeavor that relies on understanding human physiology and behavior. The quantitative estimates of harm from anthropogenic activity that risk assessment gives are just the starting point for the challenge of risk management: What do we do now?" The resulting decisions are influenced by both economic factors (e.g., cost-benefit analysis) and psychological factors (e.g., risk perception)."
This course is designed to be an applications oriented course and will draw heavily upon real world change of control case studies. The course builds on the prior courses in corporate finance. The course will not introduce significantly new finance principles or analytical techniques other than those to which the student has been exposed to previously in the prerequisite introductory courses in finance at Columbia. The course will seek to apply basic finance principles and analytical techniques to actual problems likely to be encountered by senior management of major corporations or those who are the advisors to such management in the context of an M&A transaction. At the conclusion of the course, the student will have gained an appreciation for the role M&A plays on today's corporate landscape and have formed an opinion as to whether or not an M&A transaction makes sense" for the firm. The student should expect at the conclusion of this course to have gained a level of competency in M&A commensurate with an entry-level investment banking associate in M&A. Whether or not the student "practices" M&A, the course will afford the student with an insider's look into what is an undeniable major force on today's corporate landscape. Accordingly, students who are interested in investment banking, consulting, equity research, corporate development, corporate lending, strategic planning, private equity, leveraged finance, or proprietary trading many wish to consider this course."
The course focuses on the set of concepts and techniques used to analyze and finance income-producing real property. It starts with the characteristics that make real property different, including cash flow uncertainties, debt sources and tax features. It then considers the available strategies and structures of real estate finance, including capital structure choices for construction and permanent financing. Extensive use is then made of cases to illustrate the range of choices and outcomes.
Real Estate Transactions is to provide you with an understanding of the institutional framework of commercial real estate transactions. It is the complement to the analytics of finance and investment. Real estate transactions draw upon a vast array of laws and regulations - property law, contract law, land-use law, environment law, securities law, constitutional law, corporate law, bankruptcy law, insurance law, and riparian law. Tax considerations similarly play a significant role in shaping transactions as real estate is highly sensitive to taxation at all levels of government and across all stages of property ownership. You should finish the course knowing how the terms and conditions spelled out in a term sheet find their way into particular sections and provisions of a deals legal documentation. To succeed in this business, you will need to be savvy consumers of legal expertise, notwithstanding the knowledge and expertise of your attorney.
Real Estate Transactions is to provide you with an understanding of the institutional framework of commercial real estate transactions. It is the complement to the analytics of finance and investment. Real estate transactions draw upon a vast array of laws and regulations - property law, contract law, land-use law, environment law, securities law, constitutional law, corporate law, bankruptcy law, insurance law, and riparian law. Tax considerations similarly play a significant role in shaping transactions as real estate is highly sensitive to taxation at all levels of government and across all stages of property ownership. You should finish the course knowing how the terms and conditions spelled out in a term sheet find their way into particular sections and provisions of a deals legal documentation. To succeed in this business, you will need to be savvy consumers of legal expertise, notwithstanding the knowledge and expertise of your attorney.
This course is a quantitative companion to Molecular Epidemiology (P8307) and will discuss quantitative methods and considerations needed to conduct epidemiology research involving biomarkers. Using ‘real world’ examples, this course covers topics including data accession, storage, and sharing. It includes a comprehensive evaluation of sources of biomarker data variability and how these features are handled analytically in the conduct of molecular epidemiology research. The course covers topics including how to handle values less than the limits of detection, the identification of outliers and variability due to batch effects, freeze/thaw cycles along with sources of biologic variability including urinary dilution and lipid concentration. It also discuss methods for implementing genome-wide and epigenome-wide association studies, sample and data pooling along with considerations for returning individual and aggregate-level molecular epidemiology results to study participants, scientific and lay audiences. Class activities include quantitive demonstrations and discussions. Assessment will be based on four assignments that include responses to quantitive and qualitative prompts using R-markdown.