Blog posts

Successful start for our new Imperial Data Science Intensive course

As Dr Anna Cupani of Imperial’s Data Science Institute reports, we recently welcomed our first cohort of participants for this new online course. For 10 weeks they will dive deep into data science.

With a lot of teaching activities moving online, this is the best time for our new intensive course on data science to kick off.

Young graduates, willing to learn more about this emerging field, as well as more experienced professionals with a desire to improve or redirect their career, are part of the first cohort of our Imperial Data Science Intensive course, co-organised with the Data Science Institute at Imperial and run in collaboration with the experienced bootcamp company Le Wagon, expert in on line training in all things computer science.

The participants started on Monday 12th April. Over 10 weeks, during packed days of lessons and group activities, they will learn the essential tools of data science and coding.
Equipped with this knowledge and experience, they will then have a chance to work on a final data analytics project on datasets supplied by our partner companies, ART health and digital-i.

Further information about the course, as well as dates for the upcoming sessions can be found on our website.

Read more of the article which includes a short video of Imperial’s researchers and experts in this field, explain what they find so exciting about data science and its opportunities.

 

Exciting collaboration with Imperial’s Data Science Institute to deliver new intensive course

The Data Science Institute in partnership with coding bootcamp Le Wagon has launched a 10-week course for learners to pick up skills in data science.

Last week saw the launch of the first Imperial Data Science Intensive Course – co-created by the Data Science Institute and coding bootcamp Le Wagon, with the support of the Centre for Continuing Professional Development and Imperial Projects.

This new course is aimed at either recent graduates or professionals with an interest in data science who are looking to expand their career opportunities learning the skills to explore, clean and interpret data, and to support decision making in their current job or in the one they are moving towards.

During the online launch event, we spoke with Boris Paillard, CEO and co-founder of Le Wagon, programme leads Dr Mark Kennedy  Associate Professor of Strategy and Organisation in the Business School and co-director of the Data Science Institute and Dr Susan Mulcahy, programme director of Data Spark as well as data scientists who now work for companies including Facebook and Monzo to hear what this course has on offer and how rewarding a career in data science can be.

“We are very excited about this new programme” said Dr Mark Kennedy. “This is a really demanding course. We expect the participants to already have a certain knowledge of mathematics and programming before they join – he added – but once they are in, we are confident that it will give them the right skills to access an expanding job market.”

Read the full article written by Anna Cupani of the DSI highlighting this exciting collaboration.

Find out more

The first round of the course will start on the 12 April 2021 for 10 weeks.  For more information about the enrolment process, requirements, programme and teachers please visit https://data-science-intensive.imperial.ac.uk/   Imperial alumni will benefit from a 10% discount on the course fee.

Medical Ethics course 16-20 September 2019

By Professor Raanan Gillon

In 1983, as a hybrid of NHS GP and philosopher, I started the Imperial College one week CPD course in medical ethics to introduce doctors to several different approaches to ethics (currently deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, ‘the four principles approach’). The course considers a variety of problems in medical ethics including end of life issues, double effect, acts and omissions, killing vs allowing to die, paternalism versus respect for autonomy, truth-telling in medical practice, a session on ‘practical aspects of medical ethics’, fair distribution of resources, the relation of ethics and law, human rights and medical ethics. A half-day session is aimed at helping participants to understand opposing perspectives by means of an exercise in developing arguments explicitly opposing participants’ own viewpoints concerning cases that they have found troubling.

This year the last day of the course – which always looks at issues of justice in medical ethics- will be in the form of a stand-alone one day conference to which people interested to explore this complex component of medical and health care ethics can subscribe if they are unable to attend the entire intensive five day course. Seven plenary speakers will approach the subject from their varied perspectives- philosophy (James Wilson), care ethics (Ann Gallagher), health inequalities (Sir Michael Marmot), health economics (Richard Cookson), medical law (Emily Jackson), human rights (Julian Sheather) and medical ethics (Albert Weale). There will be no small group discussions but time is built in for audience participation.

For further information and to register for this course please visit http://www.imperial.ac.uk/continuing-professional-development/short-courses/medicine/ethics/medical-ethics/

 

2019 – an exciting year ahead!

If in 2019 you are thinking about attending a Professional Development course to update your skills, refresh your knowledge or change your career path, then Imperial CPD is the place for you!

As ever we have a full and diverse portfolio of high quality short courses, within the disciplines of Science, Technology, Medicine and Business led by academics at the very top of their fields. Here are some of the highlights…..

Researcher Development Course

Previously called Starting out in Research, this popular course designed specifically for healthcare staff involved in research projects will now be directed by Dr Caroline Alexander, the Lead Clinical Academic for Therapies at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Adjunct Reader. The course is offered in two 2 day modules:

  • Module 1: 11 – 12 March
  • Module 2: 13 – 14 June

The gap between the modules is intended to allow you time to use and develop the skills taught during days 1 and 2, and to spend time developing a research question and start to formulate a proposal. We’re sure that with Caroline’s wealth of experience, this course will prove to be a successful as ever!

 

Improving Voice is back!

Previously held in 2017, don’t miss the chance to attend the very popular ‘Improving Voice: management and therapy for voice disorders’ 25 & 26 March, a 2 day course with Christina Shewell, internationally recognised expert in the spoken and singing voice. Early bird rate available until 26 February 2019!

Specific course content includes:

  • Overview of common voice disorders
  • Optimising voice evaluation
  • Introduction to 7 areas of management and therapy tools
  • Experiential voice and pair-based practical work 

 

Further your skills and broaden your opportunities in cardiovascular and respiratory healthcare.

The Faculty of Medicine’s new and exciting Cardiovascular and Respiratory Healthcare Master’s programme offers the following modules as stand-alone short courses:

Civil Engineering

Within the field of Civil Engineering, our 1 day course Systems Engineering leadership will be held on 22 March. Organised through the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation at Imperial College and the Systems Centre at the University of Bristol, this course enables you to develop your systems engineering leadership skills – to lead the use of systems engineering in infrastructure delivery in your own organizations and in the projects on which you work.

Now in its 14th year, our annual Post tensioning Design and Construction course, will be held 3-5 April, so if you’re looking to update your knowledge on the latest developments in construction technology and are  Interested in the economics of post tensioning, design procedures and software, this is the course for you!

 

Petroleum Engineering

Within the field of Petroluem engineering, is our established international course Using Special Core analysis in reservoir engineering 5-7 June. Led by the highly esteemed Jess Stiles, this 3 day course is designed primarily for reservoir engineers involved with reservoir simulation and/or classical hand calculations. A comprehensive manual accompanies the course which includes numerous examples from the North Sea and elsewhere in the world.

We also run short stand-alone courses from the MSc Petroleum Engineering programme. The remaining short courses within Modules 3- 5 are scheduled until 11 March 2019 and cover Reservoir Characterisation/ Engineering and Field Development. See our detailed course brochure for further information.

 

Mining Finance Courses

The courses offered provide a comprehensive guide to understanding the main factors involved in securing the financial support for mining projects through equity, debt, or entering into a joint venture.  This involves addressing the underlying technical principles, applying these to mineral projects and demonstrating how these influence the financial modelling.

In addition to the long-standing annual Introduction to Mining for Bankers 1-3 July, we also run the Metals and Energy Finance course, 18-22 November. Launched in November 2016, modular course in mining and energy finance identifies and examines the investment opportunities offered across the extractive industry’s cycle, from exploration through evaluation, pre-production, development and production.  The course addresses the similarities of a range of mineral and petroleum projects while identifying their key differences.

 

Summer schools

As ever, we have a busy summer planned, with a full programme of summer schools including World challenges and innovation summer school, 5-16 August, now in its 2nd year.  Applications are now open, so join us for a summer of discovery!

 

Medical Ethics – now includes a one day standalone conference!

This year, our long-standing Medical Ethics Course 16-20 September will include a one day stand alone on day conference on day 5, which will focus on Justice and fairness in medical and health care ethics – to which people interested to explore this complex component of medical and health care ethics can subscribe if they are unable to attend the entire intensive five day course.

 

Please feel free to browse our webpage for further information on these courses and our full programme of events at www.imperial.ac.uk/cpd or follow us on twitter @imperialCPD for fast course updates.

 

Medical Ethics Intensive One Week Course in London, 10-14 September 2018

By Professor Raanan Gillon

In 1983 I started a one week CPD course in medical ethics to  introduce doctors to several different  approaches to ethics (currently deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, ‘the four principles approach’). The course considers a variety of problems in medical ethics including end of life issues, double effect, acts and omissions, killing vs allowing to die, paternalism versus respect for autonomy, truth-telling in medical practice, a session on ‘practical aspects of medical ethics’,  fair distribution of resources, the relation of ethics and law,  human rights and medical ethics. A half-day session is aimed at helping participants to understand opposing perspectives by means of an exercise in developing arguments explicitly opposing participants’ own viewpoints concerning cases that they have found troubling. Overall satisfaction of previous participants has always (over the last 34 years!)  been at an average level of 9+ on a ten-point scale so  I am confident that doctors who come on the course do find it very worthwhile.

Comments from participants have included “The best post-graduate experience of my career” and “A first class course to put your ethical thinking into perspective and relate [it] to present day healthcare…”.

The course is in English and UK doctors are the main attenders but we usually have some international visitors whose perspectives add value to the experience,  as do the various others who come- among them nurses clinical ethics committee members, medical ethicists, health managers and even the occasional vet.

If you are interested in attending please visit the CPD website www.imperial.ac.uk/cpd

Professor Raanan Gillon
Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics,
Imperial College London

Serious infection and critical care in children – A learning approach centred on clinical practice

Dr Aubrey Cunnington, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Imperial College, explains how the Serious Infection and Critical Care in Children short course has developed its practical approach to learning which has proved effective and popular with students. Aubrey directs the course alongside Dr Sanjay Patel who is currently Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Southampton Children’s Hospital.

‘This short course is one of the most popular in the theme of Paediatrics and Child Health. The course has a real emphasis on application to clinical practice, built on an understanding of the most important underlying principles.

Every year we ask our attendees to evaluate the course and suggest improvements. We really do listen to this feedback and constantly seek to improve the course. It is clear that the needs of our delegates have evolved over time, and the learning styles which they find most useful have also evolved. Some content is always present – for example, learning about unconscious biases in decision making. Other content is adapted to evolving needs for both current practice and for practice in the future.

Attendees consistently praise the small group workshops as one of the most useful ways for them to learn. These are essentially like small group tutorials discussing instructive real life cases with experts in the field of infectious diseases and critical care. The tutors enjoy these as much as the delegates! Since attendees can select to attend just the first day, or both days of the course, we have typically run the workshops on the first day and focussed on underpinning knowledge and future-proofing on the second day. This year, due to popular demand, we have added workshops to the second day of the course, incorporating antimicrobial stewardship and infection control. These topics are now high priorities in the paediatric wards and critical care settings.

Last year we incorporated a “debate” into the second day of the course, which required a little preparation work by the attendees. This year we plan to repeat this with a provocative topic, which will encourage participants to synthesise much of the course content.

Once again we’ll be collecting feedback this year, and we’re sure the 2019 course will be slightly different again, but that’s what makes this course so popular and why our faculty love teaching on it.’ 

Serious Infection and Critical Care in Children will be taking place on 26 – 27 April 2018. Please visit the course website for further details

 

Introduction to Mathematical Models of the Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases 4th-15th September 2017

35 delegates from across the world attended this annual 2-week short course run by the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Bringing together policy makers, clinicians, economists, veterinarians, mathematicians, and biologists, the course provides a thorough, but accessible and demystifying introduction to the essential elements of mathematical modelling with an emphasis on the use of mathematical models for policy making. With infectious diseases frequently dominating news headlines, public health professionals, policy makers and infectious disease researchers increasingly need to understand the transmission patterns of infectious diseases. This allows them to interpret and critically evaluate both epidemiological data and the findings of mathematical modelling studies.

Highlights of an intense first week of lectures and practicals included a trip on the London Eye followed by the course dinner, and a taste of British culture with a pub quiz to end the week.

Delegates chose two projects in the second week, applying methods and concepts taught in week one to build their own disease-specific models. This year’s invited lecture was given by Dr Chris Dye, Director of Strategy in the Office of the Director General at the World Health Organization, addressing “What will the Sustainable Development Goals do for health?”.

CMOS Analog Integrated Circuit Design e-learning

This course was taught as a 5 day short course over the past 25 years at Imperial.  It was improved each year as new topics were developed and over 1000 students from industry and academics have taken the course.  The experience and feedback of those courses has been updated and captured in the present online offering.

The course provides a bottom-up, hierarchical approach to the subject of analog circuit and systems design using standard CMOS technologies.  Simple modeling techniques are used to gain an understanding of and insight into the function of circuits.  Appropriate use of the computer for simulation is discussed.  Techniques suitable to enhanced performance using integrated circuit technology are used.  In addition, the implications of IC fabrication are used whenever possible to associate the electrical performance with the physical attributes of the circuit.

Who the course if for?

This course has been designed for circuit designers who need to implement analog integrated circuits using CMOS technologies.  The course will provide experienced analog circuit designers with a valuable update on the latest and upcoming developments in the field.  It will give novices and those considering entering the field, an indispensable foundation in the fundamentals of the technology, and ways in which it can be implemented successfully.  Participants should have a general knowledge of analog circuits, electrical circuit analysis, and familiarity with integrated circuit technology.

Why is the course important?

  • It will provide a state-of-the-art review of the principles, concepts, and techniques needed to carry out the successful design of CMOS analog integrated circuits.
  • It will expose the participants to the methods used in the processing and design of such circuits, including modeling, characterization of the process parameters, SPICE simulation techniques, testability considerations, and methods of experimental verification.
  • It will help the participant understand the operation and expectations of CMOS circuits.
  • It combines an academic viewpoint with practical examples and industry experience.

Quotes (based on the previous face-to-face course)

“The course content and support documentation was very good”

“Detailed circuit analysis”

“Prof. Allen has an excellent way of presenting the course material”

“Excellent coverage of a huge subject in short time. An excellent 12 week course neatly fitted into 5 days”

“Informative, enjoyable, full of insights…I learned a lot!”

“Highly recommended for experienced and new engineers requiring an improvement in analog design”

“Several new design ideas which I as a bipolar designer, found very useful…”

“An excellent choice of course for an excellent choice of career”

”Best feature of the course is the explanations of the concepts required for analog design without all the equations”

“I am now far more confident of success with my analog CMOS designs”

 

To register for this online course, go to

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/continuing-professional-development/short-courses/eng/electrical/cmos/

Power Minimization in low-noise analog IC’s, given by Prof. Willy Sansen of the KULeuven, Belgium

This annual course, held 14-17 November 2017 at Imperial College London is an insight in analogue IC design. Insight is developed by the analysis of some of the most important circuits, followed by the use of design plans or algorithms to obtain the best Figures of Merit (FOM).  This is worked out for circuits such as multi-stage amplifiers and class-AB amplifiers. Considerable attention goes to the noise trade-off with power consumption. Both continuous-time and switched-capacitor filters are also discussed and compared, to be used in Sigma-delta Analogue-to-Digital Converters.

This course is thus for expert designers who want to become more competitive in their field. This course is however also for novice designers who are already acquainted with some design aspects but who want to broaden their portfolio in design knowledge.

Low-power Analogue design is a niche design expertise, which has never failed to lead to ever more job opportunities. At the same time it is a life-long learning activity, which perfectly fits the present-day career development goals.

It is at the core of all portable electronics, such as portable phones, medical monitoring systems, etc., but also the coming Internet of Things.

The Next 10 Years: Challenges, Innovation and Diffusion of Medical Robotics

The annual Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics came to a close during UK Robotics Week 2017.

Over 350 Surgeons, clinicians, engineers, business leaders and academics recently came together at the Royal Geographical Society for the annual Hamlyn Symposium.  Celebrating its 10th year and coinciding with the 2nd annual UK Robotics Week, the Symposium is hosted by the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery and offers an opportunity to test, watch demos and hear talks about the latest innovations in medical and surgical robotics.

Medical robotics have come a long way over the past 10 years and because there is less pain and recovery time for the patient and the surgical robotic instruments are able to be much more precise and minimally invasive, there is a win-win for both the patient and surgeon.

Marking the Symposium’s 10th birthday, the theme this year was to look at the future of medical robotics and the steps to take to allow us to further innovate, diffuse and overcome barriers throughout the next 10 years.

This year’s keynote lecture was presented by Dong-Soo Kwon from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and addressed ‘Efforts Towards the Minimum Invasive Surgery’.

Catherine Mohr

Invited speaker Catherine Mohr of
Intuitive Surgical.

Other highlighted speakers included Catherine Mohr of Intuitive Surgical who discussed ‘USA Surgical Robots as a Technology Platform’ and Andrew Turberfield from the University of Oxford who addressed ‘UK Programming Autonomous Molecular Machinery’.

The Karl Storz – Harold Hopkins Lecture was presented by Joseph J. Y. Sung from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), who talked about ‘China AI and Robotic Surgery: What is the Role of Future Medics?’.

Some segments of the event were live streamed on Periscope, which meant remote viewers were able to watch and interact with the Leaders Forum live as it happened.  Chaired by Director and Co-founder of the Hamlyn Centre Professor Guang-Zhong Yang and sponsored by Science Robotics Magazine, the Leaders Forum offered a platform for experts from across the globe to provide their views on the way forward for medical robotics in the years to come.  Experts included Professors Nikolay Vasilyev,  Russel Taylor, Bradley Nelson and Rick Satava.

 

By Jo Seed

Communications Manager,

Institute of Global Health Innovation

Imperial College London

 

For full report see

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/centres/globalhealth/newssummary/news_12-7-2017-9-15-45