English

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of continuum mechanics that underpin the theoretical understanding of many engineering disciplines and to demonstrate how problems in continuum mechanics can be solved using numerical techniques. Particular attention is paid to the theory and implementation of the finite element method. The course provides the theoretical basis for higher level courses on applications of finite element methods and finite volume methods and is a companion module to Fluid Mechanics and Stress Analysis. 

In this course, you will create a graphical action game in Python. In the process, you will learn fundamental concepts and tools that programmers use. The course will guide you step by step from a first prototype to a working game. By the end of the course, you will deploy your game to a live website. No previous programming knowledge is required.

This class discusses the international environmental regimes (international regimes: sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations (Krasner, 1983)) and related challenges, including policy-making procedures, the role of actors (international organizations, governments, the scientific community, industry, and non-governmental organizations) which influenced that policy-making, by explaining various international environmental conventions and frameworks under the United Nations.

This course explains governance issues such as the international environmental regimes and the interactions among related international conventions and institutions; multi-level governance (international, national, and local, etc.), and the fragmentation and cohesion of governance. In addition, this course explains theories and analytical frameworks, including transnational governance, which focuses on non-state actors (e.g., cities, non-governmental organizations, and companies); transition management focused on societal systems transformations, and governance related to equity between developed and developing countries.

Borders within and surrounding Europe have moved repeatedly throughout history, but rarely so frequently or so violently as during the 20th century. This class examines how processes of bordering and de-bordering since the First World War have shaped European states and peoples. It explores notions of territoriality, the construction and dismantling of borders, migration and forced migration, subversive social practices and ambiguous identities in borderlands. Case studies covered in class and in further readings focus primarily on East-Central Europe, including the former Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, German-Polish borderlands, divided Cold War Germany, and the European Union.

This course examines the central principles and concepts of marketing strategy and management. It highlights the challenges that marketing managers face in planning and implementing effective marketing mix strategies.

This version of the Sustainable Development course includes an Independent Study Project (ISP) done under the direction of the instructor. The minimum reading is between 20 and 25 articles from established academic periodicals/magazines. The ISP is 10-12 pages and counts for 1/3 of the overall grade for the course. This course studies future-defining themes such as Food, Water, Energy, Engineering, and Health both from an academic and real-life perspective. While learning about contemporary efforts and policies to address climate change, inequality, and globalization, the course also explores what these phenomena really entail and how they can be addressed through thinking and actions. The course discusses the thoughts of our greatest philosophers as well as site visits, interviews with leading policymakers, entrepreneurs, and scientists, and an exploration of real life. Understanding the essence of entrepreneurship in the realm of globally interconnected markets, production, and supply chains is a continuous thread throughout the course. Seeking to understand human behavior through the lens of consumption and lifestyles, key elements of positive psychology are studied. 

This course explores the main developments in monetary financial history from the 9th to the end of the 20th centuries, taking the students from the simple beginnings of medieval European monetary history to the complex financial arrangements of the modern world. The first part of the course covers the emergence of money and finance from the medieval ages to the early modern period. The second part examines the main developments in the global financial system since the 19th century. Students discuss and compare historical developments in major European and non-European countries (England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, USA). The course teaches students the main concepts of money and finance such as financial development, financial integration, monetary policy, banking crises etc, and provides a long run perspective to the current policy debate.

Biomechanics, as a growing field of engineering, has many applications in the health and sport sectors. This broad field of study includes the design of artificial implants, the development of human tissues in the lab, the measurement of human movement and the detection and treatment of pathological conditions, the understanding of the performance of our muscles and how to employ it in sport, the diagnosis of injuries, the imaging of biological tissues and the detection of their pathological state, etc. In this course, the fundamental principles of biomechanics and their application to real life situations will be covered including: basic understanding of the application of mechanical principles in biology, understanding of anatomical and biomechanical terminology, application of biomechanical principles to human movement, basic understanding of the mechanical properties of biological tissues and the techniques used to determine them, and more recent advanced topics such as mechanics of cells, tissue imaging and tissue engineering. Participants should have successfully completed courses in engineering mechanics and materials science and possess knowledge on programming software.

This course develops theoretical and empirical understanding of spatial economic processes in order to study and evaluate a wide range of issues and policies. Particular emphasis is put on regional economies, business and worker location decisions, focusing in particular on models of the location of economic and innovation activity with a particular emphasis on regional economies. The course analyzes the New Economic Geography theories and the agglomeration of economic activity, with a particular focus on EU integration as a testing ground. Students also look at the global and local knowledge economy, focusing on core aspects of a society based on knowledge and technical progress and how this proceeds hand in hand with the enlargement of markets and the intensification of exchange. Students explore the seeming contradiction that geographically localized knowledge may be increasingly significant just as so much of our world becomes more globalized.

This lecture provides the basics of areodynamics of bluff bodies, ground vehicles and buildings. The focus is on passenger cars. The students will be enabled to analyze and identify sources of aerodynamics forces for these objects in order to improve performance, reduce energy consumption or to incease passenger comfort. The methods include wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulation (CFD). The students will be trained in reading and summarizing scientific publications through presentations.

The course deals with flows around blunt (bluff) bodies, which either move along the ground (e.g. automobiles, trucks, trains) or lie stationary in the path of a flow (e.g. buildings). The content include: - Introduction to the aerodynamics of blunt bodies. - Fundamental mechanisms for lift and drag of automobiles. - Methods of reducing drag by means of lift production. - Aspects to the design of automobiles taking into account the flow around and through the body. - Overview of numeric and experimental methods of investigation. - Introduction of the aerodynamics of high-speed trains - Introduction to aerodynamics of buildings and environment Experiments with a 25% scaled car model will be carried out in the large wind tunnel of the TU-Berlin.