English

The course offers a basic introduction to methods for the evaluation of health promotion activities. Half of the course specializes in health economic evaluations (cost-effectiveness) with a focus on prevention, interventions, and treatments to improve or protect the health of the individual or the population. Why and how economic evaluations are made, with special focus on assessing current examples in the literature are reviewed. The other half of the course focuses on effect evaluations in non-controlled research designs by means of quasi-experimental methods, which are used when randomization has not been carried out and tries to replicate a randomized experiment. The course introduces the most common methods, discusses their advantages and disadvantages, and how one can assess the application of the method in current examples from the literature. The course has an international perspective with respect to applications and analyses.

Full course description

Flowing from this objective, the course deals with the over all history of mankind, and a number of the decisive transformations involved in that history.

What sort of creatures are we? How have we evolved from and lived before we became homo sapiens? What sort of animals are our ancestors?

Important topics nearer in time are the agricultural and industrial revolutions. The agricultural or neolithic revolution has changed us and the world permanently. In a relatively brief period we went from hunting and gathering to tilling the soil and domesticating plants and animals. Why and how did we do this? Since the agricultural revolution our numbers have multiplied beyond comprehension. Societies became increasingly complex and stratified.

The industrial revolution lifted everything to a new unprecedented plane. A type of society arose, driven by industrial innovation and run on fossil fuels. We are still living in that kind of society today, so it is interesting to know how it came about.

The course will also deal with topics like the role of war, disease, religion, worldviews and finance in shaping history. Take disease. Their ways of life brought men in contact with all sorts of diseases. Especially after the agricultural revolution we had to adapt to diseases we caught from our domesticated animals. We still have to do this. Look at present day threats like bird flu. Living in some form of armed peace with diseases has always been a major characteristic of societies. How did we do this?

Finally the course also touches upon the ‘Rise of the West’. The contentious rise of Western Europe and North America as a dominant factor in worldhistory over the last 5 centuries will be the closing topic of the course.

Course objectives

• To understand some of the major issues and episodes that have shaped the history of mankind. The focus will be on themes and topics that have had or are still having long term influences on historical development.

Prerequisites

Any course in history or sociology, COR1003 Contemporary World History, or SSC1003/SSC2065 Theories of Social Order. 

This course offers an introduction to basic technical and practical aspects of photography. Topics include: equipment; exposure; lighting; composition; editing and publishing.

The course is divided into four sections: advertising in context, advertising planning, models of advertising effectiveness, and social/cultural effects of advertising. It seeks to relate theories or issues to examples of advertising where possible, and draws on practitioner as well as academic literature in relating theory to practice. Video material is used, providing insights into the development of particular campaigns as well as different perspectives on issue such as stereotyping and the communication of values in advertising. Practitioner input into the course is also intended to relate theory to practice. 

This course provides an advanced approach to theoretical and practical genomics with a focus on mammals. The course introduces methods and technologies currently used to dissect, describe, and characterize complex genomes. Aspects of both research and application within the field of genomics is addressed. Topics include animal models and comparative genomics; organization and content of the mammalian genome; human genetic variation; genetic mapping of mendelian characters; mapping genes conferring susceptibility to complex diseases; gene expression and epigenetics; sequencing genomes: techniques, challenges, and bioinformatic analysis; molecular pathology, cancer, and pharmacogenetics; genetic testing of individuals; genetic manipulation of cells and animals, gene therapy, and stem cells; and biomarkers.