English

This course introduces basic properties of materials; how properties are related to microstructures; how microstructures are controlled by processing, and how materials are formed and joined. This course deals mostly with metals; however, properties of other engineering materials are discussed. 

This course introduces students to the history of the area surrounding the present-day political boundary between the United States and Mexico. How did this peripheral region, far from the centers of state power, become a place of great interest for those who sought to sustain and resist that power? As the course grapples with that question, students learn to think historically across and about national borders. They begin with the first contacts between Spanish explorers and native peoples and continue through NAFTA, the war on drugs, and the contemporary migration crisis. Students look for common trends in regional history that nation-based surveys and nationalistic media coverage tend to overlook. Simultaneously, they chart the emergence of the border as a political boundary, a social space, and a cultural entity.

In this course, students progress through a series of weekly workbooks that consist of structure practical tasks, each with specific outputs and objectives. Reference images are provided for many of these tasks, so that students may assess their own progress and determine when they have successfully achieved the objectives of a workbook. Completion of these formative tasks provides students with the skills and knowledge required to pass the assessments. 

The course considers the contribution made by ten films directed by women to feature film making. Do these films deal with female experience in a different way than their male-directed counterparts? Are their women characters always presented positively? How do they portray male characters and masculine settings? How do they represent (or not represent) sexual behavior and desire? How do they represent violence, poverty, and social restrictions? 

This course introduces the fundamental theory and concepts of computational intelligence methods, in particular neural networks, fuzzy systems, genetic algorithms and their applications in the area of machine intelligence. Topics include: (1) Understand the concepts of fuzzy sets, knowledge representation using fuzzy rules, approximate reasoning, fuzzy inference systems, and fuzzy logic control and other machine intelligence applications of fuzzy logic. (2) Understand the basics of an evolutionary computing paradigm known as genetic algorithms and its application to engineering optimization problems. (3) Understand the fundamental theory and concepts of neural networks, neuro-modeling, several neural network paradigms and its applications. (4) Contents: Introduction to Fuzzy Logic. Introduction to Fuzzy Sets. Introduction to Fuzzy Inference Systems. Fuzzy Logic Applications. Introduction to Genetic Algorithm. Fundamental Concepts of Artificial Neural Networks and Neural Network Architectures.

This course introduces algorithms and algorithmic thinking. Students examine common algorithms, algorithmic paradigms, and data structures that can be used to solve computational problems. Emphasis is placed on understanding why algorithms work, and how to analyze the complexity of algorithms. Students learn the underlying thought process on how to design their own algorithms, including how to use suitable data structures and techniques such as dynamic programming to design algorithms that are efficient. The course includes a prerequisite.

The course explores genders and sexual diversity in the modern society. Students discuss and investigate challenges in international politics, economics that different gender groups including, men, women, and LGBTQ face as the world becomes globalized. The course will contribute to the development of students’ ability to conceptualize their understanding of genders and sexuality with a global perspective. 

Students learn about the basic cellular mechanisms underlying common human diseases and understand how drugs act on cellular and tissue dysfunctions to treat these diseases. Students study topics including autoimmune disease, cancer, and arthritis.

This course covers issues involved in global environmental changes and introduces system thinking, which is used in natural and social sciences. The course covers the following topics: 

1: Global Change: Overview
2: System Diagram
3: Daisyworld
4: Global Energy Balance
5: The Atmospheric Circulation System
6: The Circulation of the Oceans
7: The Carbon Cycle
8: Long-Term Climate Regulation
9: Faint Young Sun Paradox, Early Earth
10: Short-Term Climate Variability
11: Global Warming and An Inconvenient Truth
12: Kepler and Milankovitch
13: Ozone Depletion

This course offers a thematic overview of the frontiers of physics, with a central focus on light due to its ubiquitous presence in the development of modern physics. It covers the classical wave description of light, from the history of its discovery to the basic mathematical notions, the speed of light and special relativity, as well as light's impact on the development of quantum theory, highlighting some fundamental quantum processes involving one or two photons. It also explores light-based technologies and considers the historical and philosophical context of these scientific concepts, laying a solid foundation for further study in physics.