Courses tagged with "Nutrition" (797)

Marketing is an understanding of how to communicate with the consumer.  It includes four activities: Creating products and services that serve consumers; Communicating a clear value proposition; Delivering products and services in a way that optimizes value; Exchanging, or trading, value for those offerings. Many people incorrectly believe that marketing and advertising are the same thing.  In reality, advertising is but one of the many tools used in marketing, which is the process by which firms determine which products to offer, how to price those products, and to whom the products should be made available. In this course, you will learn about the marketing process and examine the range of marketing decisions that an organization must make in order to sell its products and services. You will also learn how to think like a marketer, discovering that the focus of marketing has always been on the customer.  You will begin to intuitively ask: what does the customer need?  What does the customer…

This course has been designed to provide you with a clear, accessible introduction to discrete mathematics. Discrete mathematics describes processes that consist of a sequence of individual steps (as compared to calculus, which describes processes that change in a continuous manner). The principal topics presented in this course are logic and proof, induction and recursion, discrete probability, and finite state machines. As you progress through the units of this course, you will develop the mathematical foundations necessary for more specialized subjects in computer science, including data structures, algorithms, and compiler design. Upon completion of this course, you will have the mathematical know-how required for an in-depth study of the science and technology of the computer age.

This course focuses on the fundamentals of computer algorithms, emphasizing methods useful in practice.  We look into the algorithm analysis as a way to understand behavior of computer programs as a function of its input size.  Using the big-O notation, we classify algorithms by their efficiency.  We look into basic algorithm strategies and approaches to problem solving.  Some of these approaches include the divide and conquer method, dynamic programming, and greedy programming paradigms.  Sorting and searching algorithms are discussed in detail as they form part of a solution to a large number of problems solved using computers.  We also provide an introduction to the graph theory and graph algorithms as they are also used in many computer-based applications today.  We conclude the course with a look into a special class of problems called the NP-complete problems.

This course will introduce you to the history and practice of English as a scholarly discipline with the goal of preparing you for your future endeavors as an English major. It has been designed to familiarize you with the various tools that scholars have devised in order to facilitate the study of literary expression in English, from critical frameworks to close reading techniques. After an introductory unit outlining basic approaches to literary analysis, we will embark upon a genre study, devoting each of the four remaining units to a different genre of writing: poetry, the novel, drama, the rhetorical essay, and the critical essay. In each of these units, we will review a general history of the genre, read a representative sample or set of samples, learn genre-specific critical terms and theories, and apply what you have learned to essays of your own. By the end of this course, you will have developed strategies that will enable you to understand, analyze, and critically respond to works in any genre at a…

The Victorian Period of English history (1837-1901) witnessed a set of complex political, social, scientific, medical and philosophical developments. Such developments influenced - and were influenced by - various modes of cultural production, most specifically the Victorian Novel. The reciprocal relationship meant that even as discoveries fed the imaginative worlds of fiction, fictive accounts helped a reading public re imagine the language of those discoveries. As the British Empire expanded its reaches across the globe, news of new societies and cultures circulated back to the British Isles to a degree never before witnessed in English history. At home, British intellectuals began raising important questions concerning the nature of the "Woman Question," or the proper place and role for British women in society, at home, and in the workplace. In addition, this period saw the rise of Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudian psychoanalysis - a set of theories that would forever change global society and culture. In…

In the 1970s, the Chinese Communist leader Zhou Enlai was asked to assess the outcomes of the French Revolution of 1789.  He supposedly answered: “It is too soon to say.”  Though this story has a somewhat apocryphal status, it captures a fundamental truth about the world in which we live: it is a world which has been shaped by revolutions, and their legacies are always difficult to evaluate. In this course, you will gain a better understanding of the modern world by studying some of the most important political revolutions that took place between the 17th century and today.  You will seek to understand the causes of each revolution, analyze the ideologies that inspired the revolutionaries, examine revolutionary uses of violence, and consider how historical revolutions still shape contemporary politics.  Close and critical readings of historical sources will be crucial in this process. The course begins with a theoretical analysis of revolutions and a careful examination of pre-revolutionary Europe…

This course will focus on the emergence and evolution of industrial societies around the world.  We will begin by comparing the legacies of industry in ancient and early modern Europe and Asia and examining the agricultural and commercial advances that laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.  We will then follow the history of industrialization in different parts of the world, taking a close look at the economic, social, and environmental effects of industrialization.  The course is organized chronologically and thematically.  Each unit will focus on key developments in the history of industry as well as on representative areas of the globe, using primary-source documents, secondary readings, and multimedia resources to illustrate the dynamic nature of industrial change.  By the end of the course, you will understand how industrialization developed, spread across the globe, and shaped everyday life in the modern era.

Numerical analysis is the study of the methods used to solve problems involving continuous variables.  It is a highly applied branch of mathematics and computer science, wherein abstract ideas and theories become the quantities describing things we can actually touch and see.  The real number line is an abstraction where many interesting and useful ideas live, but to actually realize these ideas, we are forced to employ approximations of the real numbers.  For example, consider marking a ruler at sqrt{2}.  We know that sqrt{2} approx 1.4142, but if we put the mark there, we know we are in error for there is an infinite sequence of nonzero digits following the 2.  Even more: a number doesn’t have any width, yet any mark we make would have a width, and in that width lives an infinite number of real numbers.  You may ask yourself: isn’t it sufficient to represent sqrt{2} with 1.414?  This is the kind of question that this course will explore.  We have been trying to answer such questions for over 2,0…

The physics of the Universe appears to be dominated by the effects of four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and weak and strong nuclear forces.  These control how matter, energy, space, and time interact to produce our physical world.  All other forces, such as the force you exert in standing up, are ultimately derived from these fundamental forces. We have direct daily experience with two of these forces: gravity and electromagnetism.  Consider, for example, the everyday sight of a person sitting on a chair.  The force holding the person on the chair is gravitational, while that gravitational force is balanced by material forces that “push up” to keep the individual in place, and these forces are the direct result of electromagnetic forces on the nanoscale.  On a larger stage, gravity holds the celestial bodies in their orbits, while we see the Universe by the electromagnetic radiation (light, for example) with which it is filled.  The electromagnetic force also makes possible the a…

In the field of public policy and administration, there have been several enduring questions.  In a larger context, what is the role of government?  There has always been conflict in our society regarding the proper role of government.  How should public organizations be structured to reflect the will of the public?  How do we ensure accountability?  What is the proper role of the public administrator/analyst in policy implementation?  How should programs be evaluated? This course will provide you with an overview of the field of public administration, particularly the distinctions that set management of public organizations apart from that of private-sector organizations.  You will begin with an examination of the history and perception of the role of government in the provision of services.  You will then examine the context in which public administrators deliver services to citizens.  Public administrators must also possess a basic knowledge of managing organizations and people in order to imple…

In this course, you will learn fundamental principles of international law and examine the historical development of these laws. The nature of international law differs in many respects from local, state, and federal law. International laws are formed by either customary international norms or by treaty or multilateral agreements by organizations like the United Nations. Within the community of nations, regional alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) may also enter into agreements for collective security that have the force of law. The body of international law today includes treaties and conventions, as well as rules governing diplomatic relationships between countries. For example, the legal immunity extended to diplomats serving in other countries is considered a part of international law. Some critics do not consider what is termed “international law” to be law at all, as, unlike domestic law (where there is a police force and a judicial system to manage those who break the…

In this course, you will learn about the complexities of the legislative branch by examning the U.S. Congress in the American political system.  Course content will focus first on the history of Congress and the constant tension between Congress’ competing representation and lawmaking functions.  In this respect, you will focus on topics that include the history and original purpose of the legislative branch, the basic structure of Congress, and the electoral considerations and dynamics that impact how members of Congress act.  The course will then take a careful look at the internal politics and law-making processes of Congress.  Here, you will learn not only the “nuts and bolts” of the legislative process, but also the reasons why rules are designed as they are as well as the external competing interests that impact members and shape legislative outcomes.  By the end of the course, you should be able to explain how a bill becomes a law, how it evolved throughout the legislative process, and what…

Welcome to the exciting world of Payroll Administration!  What you’ll learn in this course is essential to your understanding of the human-resources concept of payroll as it is interpreted from a business perspective.  In applying the theoretical principles of the course in real-world ways, you should gain a better understanding of yourself and your work environment.  The goal of this course is to help you develop the fundamental skills critical to payroll operations, and to help you understand state and federal compliance.  This will provide you with a foundation for becoming more versed on the depth of payroll as an intricate component of human-resource management, and business overall. Fundamentally, the concept of payroll is rooted in both human-resource management and accounting principles.  From a human-resource management perspective, the concept of payroll embodies compliance, which includes the identification of the relationship between the employee and the employer.  There are a number of…

In ASTR101, you will be introduced to our current understanding of the universe and how we have come to this understanding.  We will start with the ancient Greeks and their belief that the universe was an orderly place capable of being understood.  We will continue through history, as we acquired more information on the nature of the universe and our models of the universe changed to reflect this.  This will take us through several different worldviews. As noted above, we will begin with the Greek worldview, which was characterized by the belief that the earth was the immovable center of the universe; this was known as the “geocentric” model.  Although this worldview is wrong in many of its details, it was a very important first step.  It explained the universe well enough that it lasted almost two thousand years.  By 1600, this belief was beginning to be challenged by such people as Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo; finally, it was completely done away with by the physics of Newton.  By 1700, the…

In this course, you will study basic algebraic operations and concepts, as well as the structure and use of algebra. This includes solving algebraic equations, factoring algebraic expressions, working with rational expressions, and graphing linear equations. You will apply these skills to solve real-world problems (word problems). Each unit will have its own application problems, depending on the concepts you have been exposed to. This course is also intended to provide you with a strong foundation for intermediate algebra and beyond. It will begin with a review of some math concepts formed in pre-algebra, such as ordering operations and simplifying simple algebraic expressions, to get your feet wet. You will then build on these concepts by learning more about functions, graphing of functions, evaluation of functions, and factorization. You will spend time on the rules of exponents and their applications in distribution of multiplication over addition/subtraction. This course provides students the opportuni…

This course is the second installment of Single-Variable Calculus.  In Part I (MA101 [1]), we studied limits, derivatives, and basic integrals as a means to understand the behavior of functions.  While this end goal remains the same, we will now focus on adapting what we have learned to applications.  By the end of this course, you should have a solid understanding of functions and how they behave.  You should also be able to apply the concepts we have learned in both Parts I and II of Single-Variable Calculus to a variety of situations. We will begin by revisiting and building upon what we know about the integral.  We will then explore the mathematical applications of integration before delving into the second major topic of this course: series.  The course will conclude with an introduction to differential equations. [1] http:///courses/ma101/…

In economics, the term "labor" refers to workers.  As a factor of production, labor earns wages for the services that it renders.  As such, students of labor economics have traditionally set out to understand wage formation, the level of employment, and all elements that go into the making of a wage relationship.  Over the years, the social and economic contexts in which labor markets operate have become increasingly complex; nowadays, labor economics is no longer limited to the study of wages.  Modern labor economics instead seeks to understand the complex workings of the labor market by studying the dynamics between employers, employees, and their wage-, price-, and profit-making incentives.  In other words, modern labor economics explores the outcomes of the labor market under the assumption that workers strive to maximize their wellbeing and firms strive to maximize profits.  It also analyzes the behavior of employers and employees and studies their responses to changes in government policies and/or…

Law, in its simplest form, is used to protect one party from another. For instance, laws protect customers from being exploited by companies. Laws protect companies from other companies.  Laws even protect citizens and corporations from the government. However, law is neither perfect nor all encompassing. Sometimes, societal ethics fill the voids that laws leave behind; other times, usually when societal ethics have been systematically violated by a group of the population, we write laws that are designed to require individuals to live up to certain ethical standards. In the backlash of the Enron scandal (where Enron executives used accounting tricks to hide losses) for example, new accounting laws were passed. Similarly, as a result of the financial crisis of 2008, legislators proposed new regulations designed to enforce a certain standard of ethical behavior within the financial services industry. This course will introduce you to the laws and ethical standards that managers must abide by in the course o…

This lab course supplements BIO304: Human Physiology [1].  Although we cannot virtually replicate the lab experience, this “lab” will familiarize you with scientific thinking and techniques and will enable you to explore of some key principles of human physiology. The material in this lab supplement relates to the material covered in the lecture and reading portion of the course.  While the lecture and reading portion focuses on big-picture concepts, here we will focus more on visual understanding, manipulation, and practical use of your knowledge.  You will review the physiology of the organ systems by using images of models, experiments, and videos.  Then you will be asked to assess your knowledge, which eventually can be put to practical or experimental use. Co-requisite: BIO304: Human Physiology [2]. [1] http://www.saylor.org/courses/bio304/ [2] http://www.saylor.org/courses/bio304/…

In this course, you will look at the properties behind the basic concepts of probability and statistics and focus on applications of statistical knowledge.  You will learn about how statistics and probability work together.  The subject of statistics involves the study of methods for collecting, summarizing, and interpreting data.  Statistics formalizes the process of making decisions, and this course is designed to help you use statistical literacy to make better decisions.  Note that this course has applications for the natural sciences, economics, computer science, finance, psychology, sociology, criminology, and many other fields. We read data in articles and reports every day.  After finishing this course, you should be comfortable evaluating an author's use of data.  You will be able to extract information from articles and display that information effectively.  You will also be able to understand the basics of how to draw statistical conclusions. This course will begin with descriptive statistic…