English

This course introduces the main kinds of derivatives, with an emphasis on pricing and hedging issues, and on how investors and corporations can use these instruments in practice. The main contents of the course are: introduction to financial derivatives; forwards, futures, and swaps (institutional apsects, pricing, hedging); options (institutional aspects, pricing, hedging); and basics of credit risk and credit derivatives. Prerequisites: a solid understanding of financial economics; familiarity with the mathematics of interest rates (discounting/compounding, equivalence of rates at different maturities), with basic statistics (expected values, standard deviation and variance, ordinary least squares), and calculus (limits, differentials, differentiation, Taylor expansions, partial differentiation, optimization, basic integration). 

This course examines the cultural fascination with the supernatural from the nineteenth century to the present. It explores a range of topics including the publication of important horror novels such as Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN (1818) and Bram Stoker’s DRACULA (1897), studies of séances and psychic investigations, as well as paranormal media and its online culture. Themes such as the otherworldly, monsters, magic, and supernatural forces continue to feature regularly in our modern society. Therefore, the course asks: how does the fascination with horror manifest itself in culture? And why are humans so drawn to the dark, evil, and macabre? By delving into the intersection of science, literature, media and the occult, this interdisciplinary exploration provides a deep understanding of the multiple contexts and social factors in which supernatural phenomena and the occult emerged and grew over the past two centuries. The course has a significant digital humanities component that takes up around 50% of the course.

This course covers current topics on aerobiology and public health. The particular topics of interest include, but are not limited to, cutting-edge technologies used for aerobiological research, effects of airborne microorganisms on global climate, emerging airborne infectious diseases, or biodefense associated with airborne microbial agents. Prerequisites: Aerobiology and Public Health

This course examines the pricing and output decisions of firms and the performance of the market under various market structures. Topics include theories of oligopoly; product differentiation; the effects of imperfect and asymmetric information; the examination of pricing practices such as price discrimination, tie- in selling, and resale price maintenance; collusion and anti-competitive behaviors, and public policies related to the promotion or restriction of competition. 

This course covers the fundamental concepts of how computers perform at machine and assembly language level. It looks at the design of an instruction set architecture and figures out what makes a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) differ from a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC). The course discusses basic design principles by understanding the components in a computer and the performance of a computer system.  

This course provides the required background for students who are interested in designing computer systems, doing serious development of operating system kernels and device drivers, and making better applications of computer systems.   

Course prerequisites: A background in Digital Logic, C Language and Assembly Language is required.  

This course examines tombs from the Neolithic period to the Yuan dynasty with a focus on the period between the 2nd and the 14th century to examine their artistic, religious, and social significance.

Chemical biology is an emerging scientific discipline that spans the fields of chemistry and biology. Chemical biology involves the use of chemical methods, tools, and molecules that are designed and made through synthetic organic chemistry, to study, understand, and manipulate biological systems. It attempts to use chemical principles to perturb or control biological systems to either investigate the mechanisms or create new functions. In the class we will review the chemical biology of small molecules, biomacromolecules, and concepts and techniques.

The course is an introduction to politics in a globalized world, with a focus on how political science tries to understand and explain cross-country and cross-time differences. The course begins by introducing students to some of the main empirical variations in political behavior, political institutions, and outcomes across the world, focusing mainly on democratic and partially democratic countries (in both the developed and developing world), and introduces students to some of the basic theoretical ideas and research methods in political science. Each subsequent week is devoted to a substantive topic, where a more detailed analysis of political behavior, political institutions, or political outcomes are presented and various theoretical explanations are assessed.

This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts, principles, and techniques of financial accounting and reporting for students who are not specialists in accounting. It takes a conceptual and practical approach which emphasizes general principles and methods in order to allow these concepts to be applied to specific problems and issues in accounting and the wider business/social environment. The course assumes no background knowledge in accounting.

This is a unique culture cluster course which focuses on advancing students’ framework for investigating fundamental questions in culture, language, and law. The course is divided into three sections. The first two sections are devoted to learning various cultural theories in relation to private and public law. The remaining weeks focus on issue analysis.