English

This course covers the basic principles of machine reasoning, exploring the foundations of the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence, and outlining the mathematical techniques used in both knowledge representation and future artificial intelligence courses. Once equipped with the main technical and theoretical tools, students are presented with a selection of different applications of machine reasoning, e.g., natural language processing, machine vision, and robotics, to create a point of contact with real-world examples and future, more advanced AI courses.

This seminar serves as an introduction to Scottish Studies, an interdisciplinary field combining history, literature, sociology, food studies, and other approaches. The three parts are closely linked both chronologically (focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries) and thematically, all three intertwining themes of food, literature (or writing), and Scottish national identity. The first section looks at the ways in which Scotland was “invented” or reinvented in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perceived until the mid-eighteenth century as a backward land ridden with religious strife and tyrannical politics, Scotland emerged as a proud Romantic nation. The seminar first examines the rise of travelling, tourism, and travel-writing as ways of creating and disseminating new representations of the nation. Then the study bears on the cult of two men who lived in the late eighteenth-century: the national "Bard" Robert Burns and Thomas Muir, a lesser-known defender of the French Revolution, victim of tyranny who was celebrated in Bordeaux and Paris and died in 1798, providing inspiration for later generations of democrats. The cult of heroes raises many questions: who became a hero and why? What aspects of their lives were brought forward, what aspects were hidden? What (ideological, nationalist, etc.) purposes did the cult of heroes serve? Who contested heroes and why? What about heroines? A particular focus of interest is the Burns Supper, a tradition closely associated with Scottish identity: invented in 1801, it is still vivid today, has become global and has taken on many different meanings across time and place, serving in particular to celebrate Scotland’s role in the British Empire. The second section examines writing by a selection of nineteenth century Scottish authors and the influence of their texts on cultural life and popular culture in Scotland and the wider world in ensuing centuries. The seminar touches on the afterlives of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson as international authors; literary and cultural tourism in Scotland and elsewhere; Scottish food and drink as evolving literary tropes as well as the scholarly annotation of 19th-century Scottish texts for the needs of 21st-century readers. Finally, the course witnesses history at work in family recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries in Scotland: In England and Scotland, the tradition of the landowning gentry keeping recipe books began in the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century, these accounts had become a way for the elite to establish their way of life as a continuum, a vital and enduring heritage passed down from generation to generation. The National Library of Scotland holds a large collection of cookery books, some of which come from the papers of one particular family: the Malcolm family of Burnfoot in Dumfriesshire. Readers can witness the evolution of these records from the first manuscript written in 1782 to the last one in 1892. Examining the family’s recipe books gives us a glimpse into the food consumption habits of an upper-class Scottish family and serves as a valuable record of their ascension up the social ladder. The way cultural influences can be traced in these recipe books also tells us about history from a different, fascinating angle: that of food.

The course enables students to become skilled in the use of techniques and tools for modelling, implementing, and evaluating interactive systems, and they learn how to apply the theories, techniques, and tools presented in the course via challenging exercises which combine design, implementation, and evaluation.

This course explores how organizations can work effectively. It covers a wide range of topics to help students understand the principles and processes that underpin effective organizations, and how organizational behavior concepts, theories, and techniques can be applied in work and management settings.

This course examines health psychology and the role of health psychologists in clinical and research settings. It examines biological, psychological, and social factors in the conceptions of health and health related attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Topics include health promotion, behavioral health and illness prevention, substance abuse, stress and coping, management of chronic and terminal illness, pain management, and health services. 

This course provides an introduction to the foundational theories and concepts of management, focusing on understanding human behavior within organizations. Students will explore how individuals and groups interact in organizational settings to gain both theoretical insights and practical skills that are essential for effective management. Emphasis will be placed on applying management principles to real-world scenarios to prepare students for success in professional environments.

This course covers the physical, chemical, and biological processes that impact the oceans and atmosphere. As Earth’s fluid envelopes, the oceans and atmosphere share many dynamical similarities, as well as important differences. The course covers the geophysical fluid dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere, which influence the large-scale transport of heat and water/air masses, as well as small-scale features such as eddies and convection. Different modes of climate variability, such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation are investigated. This course also covers key biogeochemical processes that impact on the chemistry of the ocean and atmosphere, including carbon and nutrient cycling, and air-sea gas exchange. The insights from the physical circulation of the ocean and atmosphere build on knowledge of biological and chemical processes and reactions to understand key concepts such as cloud formation and aerosols.

This course provides an overview of what has changed (and what has not) in British society and culture since the early nineteenth century. It does not attempt to be comprehensive, but rather uses historical debates to provide a context to questions which remain highly pertinent in Britain today.  Why does Britain, uniquely in Europe, still have a monarchy?  Why is social class still such an important aspect of how the British see themselves? Why have statues of nineteenth-century imperial figures become a source of such violent controversy since the emergence of the BLM? In what ways has ‘Brexit’ revealed Britain’s difficulty to confront its national decline over the last hundred years?  How might movements for racial and social justice in contemporary Britain work within a specific British radical paradigm?  All these questions can only be answered if we address the last two centuries of British history, confronting the longer-term patterns of continuity and change which are still playing out in a nation which struggles to confront both its past and its present. Specific topics covered include: aristocracy and monarchy since 1800; nineteenth and twentieth century movements for social change; advocates and critics of the British empire; explanations for British ‘decline’ in the twentieth century; gender and sexuality, 1800-1914; youth and popular culture since the 1930s.

In this course, students study econometric methods to analyze individual-level data (microdata). The course starts by studying core policy evaluation methods, then covers various extensions, and finally reviews limited dependent variable models. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on (a) agents’ choice and selection into treatment, and (b) heterogeneities in treatment impact. Related to these keywords, the lectures answer the following questions: What are appropriate econometric techniques to measure policy impact when assignment to the policy (treatment) is not random? What is the econometric framework to measure policy impact when the policy impact is heterogeneous among the individuals?