English

In this course, students learn to conceptually understand and empirically explore how news content is evolving in response to social media platforms. The first seminar introduces students to key theoretical concepts related to the platformization of journalism, the adaptation of news to TikTok’s affordances, and audience-centered approaches to understanding what constitutes news on TikTok. Students learn to critically engage with current studies on news on social media and develop their own questions for empirical research. In the second seminar, students gain an overview of methods for audiovisual content analysis, ranging from qualitative and quantitative approaches to computational analyses. Students learn about key steps of the data collection and analysis of TikTok content. The coupled seminars are structured around an empirical group project, allowing students to directly apply the concepts and methods related to news content on TikTok.

In this course, students learn how to use Python to retrieve and parse data from biological repositories through bulk download and application programming interfaces (APIs). They learn about established data formats for different data modalities so that they understand the structure and content of the data they are using and how it was generated. Each week students focus on analytical tasks in linked topics that span the main components of modern biomedical informatics research. Topics change slightly each year, but typically include tools, algorithms, and approaches for biological sequence, multi-omics (transcriptomics, proteomics, methylomics), biomedical network, and biomedical text analysis. Each topic is explored using real-world examples.

 

This course integrates Chinese language and culture, by using materials from Chinese culture, history, and actuality to support language teaching. It was designed especially for those UCU students following a track in Chinese language and culture and preparing for their study abroad program in China. It is, however, also suitable for all students interested in Chinese language and culture.

At the end of the course, students have acquired knowledge on the main morphological, physiological, and molecular responses of higher plants to environmental cues and the basic mechanisms of tolerance and adaptation to adverse conditions. Students learn about how plants contribute to air quality by the release of biotic particulates and by interfering with air pollutants derived from anthropogenic activities. Due to changes in plant distribution in relation to climate change, students become acquainted with the contribution of alien species to the release of such biotic particulates. Students also learn about methods employed in aerobiology for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of pollen and other air-borne allergens, gain the capacity to interpret data, and critically read scientific literature relating to this topic. They also acquire knowledge on the ability of plants to monitor environmental quality and influence it, on the release of volatile plant compounds with therapeutic effects as well as on the possible use of plants in environmental phytoremediation. Additionally, students in the laboratory acquire methods to analyze plant allergenic proteins, to monitor the effect of stress on photosynthetic activity; in addition, students analyze an aerobiological sample, allowing them to know that a myriad of microorganisms and particulates (many of which are respirable) are present in the atmosphere.

Laboratory activities:

1. Microscopic recognition of aerobiological slide: allergenic and non-allergenic pollen

2. Western blotting/dot blotting for apple and pollen allergenic proteins

3. Pollen-fruit cross-reactivity with specific Ab and comparison with non-cross-reactive pollen/food

4. Handy-Pea: evaluation of photosynthetic activity in stressed and non-stressed plants (e.g. plants maintained at 4 °C)

This course examines the causes and consequences of climate change in relation to agriculture, recognizing agriculture as both a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions and a sector highly vulnerable to climate impacts. With particular attention to Ireland, where agriculture accounts for a substantial share of national emissions, the course explores innovative land-use solutions and strategies for mitigation and adaptation at local and global scales. Topics include livestock management, food systems and dietary choices, agricultural efficiency, bioenergy, and policy pathways toward carbon neutrality, including those proposed by Teagasc. The course also emphasizes the development of research skills, including the sourcing, critical evaluation, and synthesis of information related to agriculture and climate change.

This course focuses on Deep Learning (DL), with an emphasis on recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP). It is structured into lectures that cover the fundamental concepts of the field, complemented by practical tutorials and exercises, where these concepts are further expanded and practically implemented through live coding sessions (mainly in Python). The course is organized along the following themes: Recap of Machine Learning (ML) fundamentals; Introduction to Neural Networks and the connectionist paradigm: from the perceptron to Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs), universality theorems, the backpropagation algorithm, and principles of Neural Network design; The rise of Deep Learning: Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), regularization techniques, and residual connections. Basics of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), attention mechanisms, and Transformers; Introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP): text preprocessing, static and contextual word embeddings, language modelling, and neural approaches to text processing—from neural machine translation to modern large language models (LLMs). Course prerequisites: solid understanding of calculus, linear algebra, probability, and statistics, along with basic prior programming experience in Python.

The course looks at economic theories and the process of integration, with a focus on European integration. The first part of the course examines various trade policy measures, their economic effects and the role of the WTO in multilateral liberalization, and international integration. Emphasis is put on current WTO issues and the challenges faced by the future trade system. The second part of the course looks at economic theories aimed at explaining the purpose and the effects of regional integration. This part focuses on the factors that impact on the economic effects of regional integration as well as on policies that are of importance for the integration process. Emphasis is put on the various types of regional integration, various forms of market structure and competition policy. The third part studies the process of multilateral trade liberalization within the framework of the WTO. Special emphasis is placed on current WTO issues and the challenges of the future multilateral trade system. Here, the regional dimension of economic integration is also examined.

This course covers the foundations, principles, importance and guidelines of financial planning for life goals, the uses of financial instruments, together with self-discovery techniques, financial planning techniques including how to earn, collect, use and invest money, savings allocation and DCA investment techniques, debt management techniques, savings increase techniques, personal income tax saving planning techniques as well as the principles and importance of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in Thai society.

This course introduces students to learning about, practicing, and discussing the most effective science-backed methods for improving psychological well-being and building resilience. The course also places these often Millenia-old practices into their historical and cultural contexts. Students participate in and critically reflect on personal experiences with wellness practices and apply Thematic Analysis to qualitative data derived from journaling.  Topics include What is learned optimism, Resilience and positivity ratio, Mindfulness and science. e.g. Evolutionary psychology, plasticity, cognitive science, Thematic Analysis and its applications.