English

The Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) are often seen as global models of welfare, good governance, and high quality of life, successfully combining social protection with entrepreneurial success. Historically associated with consensus politics, trust, and moral leadership - through figures such as Olof Palme or Norway's peace diplomacy - the region has long defied conventional wisdom about global pressures for deregulation, showing how social protection can coexist with global competitiveness. Recent narratives of decline, however, point to rising crime, economic stagnation, and populism. This course revisits the evolving politics of the "Nordic model," exploring its institutions, challenges, and relevance for Europe through history, politics, economics, and sociology.

This course examines information theory, including error-correcting codes, data compression and cryptography. Each of these subtopics are enhanced by the application of entropy functions, and more sophisticated error-correcting codes are provided by way of brief introduction to number theory and finite fields. 

This course examines philosophical and conceptual issues in the life sciences. Topics may include the units and levels of selection, adaptationism, the evolution of altruism, biology and ethics, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, cultural evolution, evolution versus creationism, and the origin and nature of life. It addresses questions including: What is life? Why do living things inevitably die? Could artificial life (for example, synthetic cells made in a laboratory) ever be genuinely alive? How should we understand the role of our genes in shaping who we are? We're told that it's important to conserve biodiversity, but what exactly is biodiversity, and should it be the main target of conservation efforts? How do (and how should) social values relate to life scientists' study of human behavior, sexuality, and other topics? How does our increasing knowledge of microbial life, including the bacteria and other microorganisms living inside our own bodies, affect our understanding of the living world and of what it means to be human?

This course examines the region of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean between 1500 BCE to 100 CE. Topics include an introduction to Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world, the Neo Assyrians and their Empire – 900 to 600 BCE, the Neo Babylonians and their rule – 600 to 537, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire – 537-333BCE. The Hellenistic Empires, Seleucid and Ptolemaic Empires, and the Romans and Parthians are also covered.

This course focuses on practical statistics and computation in real-world scenarios. It covers how statistics are used, how to turn data into information, how to create statistical graphics, how to obtain data from surveys and designed experiments, probability theory, and random variables.

This advanced course is especially designed in the format of seminars and guest lecturers to expose the student to the frontier of knowledge of climate and apprehend what are the topics available for the final thesis. Students are able to grasp what are the emerging areas on climate science and be able to select the topic for future deepening of the knowledge.

The course is structured with 1- or 2-hours long time slots and with three types of offers:

1) Seminars: >=1 hour on current research/technological challenges, delivered by specialist.

2) Lecture: >=2 hours on a more general topic of broader relevance and less technical details.

3) Short course: >=3 hours on an additional supplementary skill. Examples may include a focus on programming or on an area of transversal interest.

The exact schedule changes every year. Students are asked to check the program frequently given that it is usually updated in the course of the year based on availability of speakers.

Systems do not in general naturally behave in a manner which accords with the user’s wishes. Systems must in general be extended by the addition of a controller in order to force them to behave in an acceptable fashion. The controller may be a human (as in the case of the driver of a car for example), but the controller may also be a human-designed engineering system in its own right. In the latter case the controller is called an automatic controller. This course addresses the need for, the value of and the design of automatic controllers for some of the most common classes of engineering systems. Automatic controllers appear in more or less every engineering environment, from automotive/aerospace to biomedical equipment and including almost everything in between.

This course examines the housing crisis as a central social justice challenge in contemporary cities. Focusing on issues of supply, affordability, and homelessness, with particular attention to Ireland, the course explores the economic and political dynamics of housing markets and the reasons these markets often fail to meet social needs. Drawing on social scientific concepts and empirical evidence, the course analyzes how governments and societies value, regulate, and provide housing. Emphasizing housing as a fundamental human need, the course adopts a social justice perspective to critically assess current conditions and develop creative, realistic solutions aimed at building more equitable and socially just cities.

This course examines the constructed images and historical realities of some of the most important peoples in the ancient world, other than the Greeks and the Romans. The three main directions of the course are: (1) an analysis of the concept of ‘barbarian’ in the Classical world; (2) an examination of selected Greek and Roman sources on Northern barbarians, especially Celts and Germani; (3) a study of these same peoples ‘from within’, i.e. based on archaeological and linguistic evidence. The course investigates the role which the so-called ‘barbarians’ of northern Europe played in ancient history, from the earliest documented contacts with the Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age, to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD.

This course offers an introduction to US Constitutional law. It provides a solid foundation in the constitutional law of the US both for commercial lawyers, and for lawyers interested in public law and human rights. In addition to examining questions of interpretive method, the course focuses on the powers of the federal government and the allocation of decision-making authority among government institutions, including federalism and separation of powers.