English

This class teaches basic principles, guidelines, tools, and practices of human computer interaction. It covers a broad range of issues starting with human cognitive and perceptual capabilities, 2D interfaces, 3D and multimodal interfaces, interfaces for web and mobile devices, and usability and evaluation methods. The course will emphasize practical applications and thus require students to carry out many UI design and evaluation projects. The lectures will aim to use as many case studies as possible.

Recommended prerequisite: C/C++ Programming 

In the early 21st century, there were three techno-economic and strategic cores—Europe, North America, and East Asia, with East Asia being the fastest growing and most dynamic. Although the three regions are of approximately equal economic size, East Asia has been surging forward. East Asia includes China, the world's fastest growing continental economy and second largest economy; Japan, the third largest economy, the second largest source of global capital, and technological leader; South Korea, a technological leader, and Southeast Asia. East Asia is also becoming increasingly important militarily. East Asian strategic issues affect even geographically distant great power relations, including the trans-Atlantic relationship. 

This course focuses on the international relations of this crucial region. It begins by tracing the legacy of the Sino-Centric tributary system, a relatively hierarchical international relations system quite different from the anarchical Westphalian system. Then, it considers the impact of Western Imperialism; the rise and fall of Japanese Imperialism, and the Cold War. The remainder of the course focuses on the post-Cold War decade of the 1990s; the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98; the rise of regional multilateral institutions; the influence of historical memory on regional politics; East Asia under unipolarity; the rise of China and its complex relations with Japan and the US; China -Japan relations, and more generally, Asia’s relationship with Europe. The course concludes by considering several scenarios for Asian regional politics and this region's place in, and impact on, the global system over the next decades.

This course introduces various types of linguistic mechanisms and ways of thinking that can be harmful or defective. It considers pejorative terms that are used to denigrate other people based on their social identity, such as race, ethnic group, nationality, religious group, and sexual orientation. The course also discusses issues related to conceptual ethics, which considers concepts that are not the most useful for describing reality and how to revise or modify them to achieve different theoretical or practical objectives. Finally, the course examines the mechanism of silencing, which consists of speech acts aimed at incapacitating the audience from performing certain types of speech acts, altering the meaning of their words or the type of actions they can perform with them. 

The services sector accounts for three-quarters of GDP and employment in developed countries. This course explores the distinctive characteristics of services and explain how these impact on the marketing used by firms. Student examine the management of service processes, customer behavior in service settings, internal marketing and the role of employees, and the management of customer relationships. The importance of service quality, complaint handling, and service recovery are also explored.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the first disciplines of Digital Marketing. It changes a lot over the years, switching from keyword-based logic to search intent answers. It is important to know all the fundamentals: words used, international scenario, the evolution of Search Engines, and the ranking factors. Since Google is the most used Search Engine in most of the world, all the topics covered in the course are based on Google guidelines. The course discovers the most impactful activities that can help websites to have success on Google, divided by: technical, internal, and external. The course examines how to build an informational architecture, and students work on a fashion web project, discovering how to approach the work and solve problems an SEO specialist would meet. With the help of Advertising, User Experience, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing and Web Analytics, SEO can express its real potential. The course demonstrates how the Digital Marketing initiatives can help each other to have the best opportunity to success online. There are other platforms where one can do SEO, such as YouTube, Pinterest, MyBusiness, and Amazon. The course explores the common points within Google SEO and others, to see how companies can take advantage of them. The course discusses topics including the basic of Search Engine Optimization; ranking factors for Google; the evolution of SEO; how to build a website informational architecture; SEO techniques, on site and off site and some tools to be used; how SEO can help other digital initiatives and vice versa (Advertising, User Experience, Email Marketing, etc.), how to do SEO, not only on Google; and how to track the results.

This course mainly considers various gender relations of the contemporary Japanese society from sociological and cultural perspectives. Students are expected to understand and critically analyze the basic characteristics of gender relations in Japan through various readings and class discussion. Students are expected to have critical perspectives on “normal” everyday life upon completion of this course. 

This course provides an introduction to topics in the field of (international) financial markets, central banks, monetary policy, and the banking sector.  It begins with a classification of financial markets (e.g. capital markets, money markets) as well as an analysis of the role financial markets play in the overall economic framework, both from a macro-economic as well as a micro-economic perspective. Thereafter, the "management" of financial markets is discussed, in particular the central role played by central banks in this respect. The functions and tasks of central banks are analyzed, in particular their responsibility for monetary policy. The course deals with the operational framework for monetary policy, and the interaction of central banks and banks in the money market. The functions of banks are elaborated upon, as well as their respective business activities, and the developments in the (international) banking sector are analyzed. The course finishes with an analysis of risk management at banks, and the importance of adequate risk management from the point of view of overall financial stability. In this context, the role of financial supervisors is also discussed.

This course introduces students to the concepts of financial risks and to the techniques used to manage those risks using financial derivatives. After showing how to measure risk and its impact on the firm’s business, the course illustrates the functioning of derivatives, such as forward and futures, swaps and options, and their use to hedge financial risks.