English

This course covers the fundamentals of mechanical design for devices and systems, including an examination of economic and manufacturing viability. 

Students will learn various design approaches for real engineering problems and, through team and individual projects, will participate in an entire design process from a sketch to a performance test. At the end of the course a contest will be held as a performance test for designed products.   

Topics include fostering creative mechanical design skills, fostering creative implementation skills of product design, collaboration and teamwork skills, concept design, 2D and 3D design, machining and manufacturing skills, and how to create an effective presentation. 

This course focuses on the ways in which Africa has been imagined and represented across the ages. Drawing on key texts from the creative and performing arts, the course explores specific depictions of Africa and Africans in each era and opens up questions about the relationship between arts and society. The course examines African self-representations alongside representations that focus on Africa as a site of difference or ‘othering’. Topics include: What is representation?; Images of Slavery; Travel writing and tourism; Visual Arts; Anti-colonialism/ nationalism in film. Assessment includes tutorial hand-ins (20%), 1st essay (20%), and 2nd essay (30%). Course entry requirements: None

This course examines the causes and correlates of global poverty, and investigates the policies used to address it. The approach of the course is microeconomic, meaning that it focuses on individual and household behaviors, as well as market failures which lead to sub-optimal choices by these individuals. It covers measurement of poverty and inequality, the role of health and education in poverty, problems in credit, savings, and insurance markets, the causes and effects of migration, environmental degradation, and child labor. 

This course addresses one of the most important contemporary issues - responsible data use. The concept of responsible data is based on understanding the individual and societal collective duty to prioritize and respond to the ethical, legal, and social challenges coming from the use of data. The key elements of responsible data use - data privacy, data protection, and data ethics - are discussed in detail. The main feature of the course is to bring all these three elements together and to discuss them in the context of the contemporary legal and technological environment as well as future development.

This introductory course in macroeconomics teaches the insights of macroeconomic theory from a real-world perspective. The course combines chapters from the Blanchard textbook and units from the textbook The Economy to present a picture of contemporary macroeconomic problems and theories.  The course starts with an introduction to key macroeconomic concepts, the use of models, the general equilibrium, and emerging properties. The second session focuses on economic fluctuations and the importance of multiplier effects. The next step is to analyze the importance and effects of fiscal policy. To provide a tool for analyzing the effects of policies, the wage and price setting model, and the Phillips curve are introduced. Special attention is given to the origins of inflation and the difference between supply and demand shocks. Next to fiscal policy, attention to monetary policy is given, after the role of the banking system in the economy is defined. The final session focuses on the specific problems that are related to the Eurozone countries; fixed exchange rates, the (non)optimal currency area, sovereign debt problems, and structural imbalances.

This course primarily focuses on the ocean's role in the global biogeochemical cycling of elements, with special attention given to the impact of human activities on the transport of these elements within these cycles. The course begins by covering basic ocean chemistry, followed by an exploration of the concept of global geochemical cycles based on water/rock interactions. The discussion then delves into nutrient and trace metal cycling, emphasizing redox reactions and the biologically mediated oxidation of organic matter. Steady-state models will be employed to explain the global distribution of these components in the oceans. 
 
In addition, the course examines the role of sediment in shaping ocean chemical composition, considering both equilibrium and kinetic perspectives and touches upon marine chemistry related to radioactive and stable isotopes. 
 

This course aims to provide young marine scientists with a foundation in the fundamental concepts of ocean chemistry, while offering a global perspective on the subject. There are no prerequisites for enrollment, but a background in basic chemistry (e.g., Chemistry 101) is preferred.   

This course focuses on designing strategies from the market back to create, deliver, and sustain customer value in competitive and dynamic markets. To do so, a comprehensive investigation and analysis of all major components of marketing strategy and their integration. This course takes a business-oriented setup by focusing on real-life examples/cases, allowing participation in a market simulation game. The objective of the simulation is to put into practice the concepts related to marketing strategy and the marketing mix in a risk-free environment. Prerequisites: A basic marketing course at the level of Management of Organizations and Marketing and Marketing Management, and/or knowledge of the basic concepts of marketing

From the 16th century, Europeans pushed to open trade routes to the east, increasingly disrupting earlier interactions between the southern African interior and the wider Indian Ocean region that had been in place from the 1st millennium AD. The European diaspora in southern Africa created new orders of power, control, and trade that had massive impacts on indigenous societies who were subjected to slavery, genocide, and eventually apartheid. This course examines these interactions and transformations from both foreign and local viewpoints, in which the idea of the frontier is a central theme. The focus is on archaeological evidence and the contribution it makes to understanding the texture of life on frontiers and the new identities that frontiers created. In doing this the relationship between archaeological evidence, written sources and oral history is critically addressed, particularly in the search for perspectives that address cultural change and continuity at the local scale. DP requirements: Attendance at lectures and practicals, completion of assignments. Assessment: Assignments and class tests count 50% towards the final mark and one 3-hour exam written in November counts 50%. A sub-minimum of 40% is required for the examination. Course entry requirements: AGE2011S or AGE2012F, or by permission of the Head of Department.

This course examines how cosmetics and personal care products work from a scientific standpoint. Chemistry plays a key role in the manufacturing and continual improvement of personal care and other household products. It is involved in all stages, from the chemical extraction of natural products to the packaging of final consumer products. Throughout the course, students will learn the interaction of skin-care chemicals with lipids in the skin, the suspension of oil in emulsions, and how sunscreens filter or scatter UV light. Furthermore, the students will learn how to interpret ingredient lists and understand their roles. Marketing hype and trends, such as anti-aging, will be dissected to examine the underlying scientific principles and negative campaigns analyzed to evaluate their veracity.

This course examines selective topics. Each topic will be explored in depth and students will get a comprehensive view of the research that is driving the frontiers of our knowledge and revealing the fundamental mechanisms that lead to human disease.