English

This course provides an overview of microbiology and immunology, ranging from microbes in diverse environments to the cells and molecules that make up the immune system, and how these act in health and disease. Students have the opportunity to explore the wider context in which microorganisms exist as microbial communities, followed by a focus on core molecular and cellular principles of both microbiology and immunology. Students learn how infectious agents combat host immune defenses and how aberrations in the immune response can lead to disease.

Students explore quantitative mathematical methods for taking decisions in the presence of constraints or finite resources; learn about linear programming, integer linear programming, robust optimization, and game theory and their application; classify mathematical programs on the basis of the number and types of their solutions; implement solution techniques for linear programs with both real and integer-valued variables; and become familiar with fundamental notions of duality, degeneracy, and sensitivity.

This course examines a variety of organisms, including Australian invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. It covers fundamental aspects of evolution such as adaptation, sexual selection, symbiosis, and the origins of life. 

Monte Carlo simulations are a powerful computational technique for probabilistic and deterministic problems with applications to various fields including computer science, finance, economics, engineering, mathematics, and physics. The initial part of the course is about computer-simulated randomness and begins with pseudo-random generators and simulating one-dimensional random variables. From the moment that we can simulate one random variable, we can simulate a whole discrete process, such as Markov chains and use the simulations to extract statistical results of their equilibria. The course also explores applications in Physics via the Ising model and in Statistics via the goodness of fit tests. The course is a mixture of coding with probability theory, and students use the R software for the simulations.

This course provides the fundamental keys to understand the new place occupied by the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf on the international scene. It offers a panoramic study that is twofold: how are these Arab monarchies deploying regional policies to consolidate their influence in the Middle East; and how have these Arab monarchies become a new global epicenter of international relations? The course also includes a simulation module for international negotiations. It provides a more practical approach of the subject and its stakes, but also to practice international negotiations, public speaking and to solicit the knowledge acquired in the course. In view of the breadth of the theme and the area covered, the teaching involves many disciplines, such as history, geography, economics and international law, with a predominance of international relations and strategic studies.

This course provides a broad overview of neural engineering concepts and principles for recording outgoing (efferent) and generating ingoing (afferent) neural signals. These concepts form the basis for neural interfaces or human-machine interfaces. This area is interdisciplinary and encompasses the fields of neuroscience, physiology, signal processing, machine learning, and robotics. The course provides insights into existing and future neural interfaces, neural prostheses, and neurorobotics. The course introduces principles and technologies of neuroengineering applications including basic human neurophysiology and -anatomy, brain stimulator, spinal cord stimulation, functional electrical stimulation (FES), neural-machine interface for motor prosthesis control, artificial visual, and auditory devices for augmented sensory perception. Assumed prior knowledge: Mathematics, Physics and Physiology (eg. EXTG50).

This course gives students the opportunity to explore in greater depth the cell and molecular basis for much of cell behaviour that often fails in disease processes. 

This course provides an overview of key approaches in film studies, exploring film as an art form, an economic product, a social practice, and an object of theoretical reflection. Through lectures and mandatory film screenings, students are introduced to central concepts for studying topics such as the film industry, film form, film genres, and stardom. In seminars, students analyze films and supplementary materials (e.g., film magazines, advertisements, reviews) while developing their film analysis skills individually and collaboratively.

This Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) develops sophisticated integrated software systems which would allow mathematicians to combine the latest algorithms to solve their problems without needing to understand the details of their implementation. The project includes the following pieces of work: graphs and digraphs (for example, is a graph planar, connected, biconnected, what is its chromatic polynomial), groups and semigroups (for instance, what is the size of a semigroup or group generated by a set of elements, how to compute a presentation of one of these objects), other mathematical algorithms relating to other modules undertaken at St Andrews, and how to represent problems to a computer so they are easy to use and the implementations are as efficient as possible.

This course teaches the complexities of socio-technical transitions, including the systemic nature of these long-term change processes, and their unfolding across geographical scales (local/regional, national, supra-national/global). Students develop a conceptual understanding of transitions in a multi-scalar context, as well as apply transitions frameworks to the empirical context of their domain of interest (i.e. energy, transport, food, or life sciences). Via guest lectures, students learn about the transition challenges different organizations (including government, industry, consultancy, NGOs and industry associations) are facing and how they make sense of their transitioning systems environment. The course is split into two parts: In the first part, students learn the basics theory and core concepts related socio-technical transitions. Several transition frameworks and concepts, like the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), Strategic Niche Management (SNM), and transition pathways are taught and are applied to their own societal transitions study. Furthermore, students learn about public policy instruments and the underlying policy rationale for intervening in societal transitions. In the second part of the course, based on the general conceptualizations, students learn how to embed transition dynamics in a specific geographical context. Develop an understanding about the diversity of actor-specific resources, networks, and institutional conditions across space, and explore the regional aspects of a transition in relation to national and global system structures. Throughout the course, students apply the theoretical knowledge to their own empirical case study and develop transition- and region-specific policy interventions to help support their focal societal transition.