English

This course is an introduction to Buddhist thought, its Indian origins, and all three scriptural traditions including Southeast Asian Pali, East Asian Chinese, and Central Asian Tibetan. It explores the basics of Buddhist philosophy, religious doctrine, religious practices such as meditation, and Buddhism as an institutional religion in a Buddhist community. The course touches on the function and role of the Buddhist monastery in traditional Buddhist society and studies Buddhism both as a textual-philosophical tradition and a live religion. Other topics include early Buddhism's doctrines of non-substance and dependant-arising, Mahayana physical concepts of emptiness, conceptualization only, Buddhist ideas of knowledge and cognition, comparing the soteriological projects between Hinayana and Mahayana, and others. 

This course focuses on introducing students to the core concepts of the Unix operating system and how to program this system. Today, Unix and Unix-like operating systems are ubiquitous; they are widely used in servers, embedded devices and have a growing desktop and mobile market (Linux, Mac OS X, Android etc.). This course teaches students how to develop applications for such systems, assuming no other software layer but OS. Students improve their existing C programming language skills and learn some key POSIX APIs to support designing and writing programs in a portable, maintainable fashion. They learn how to write multithreaded and multi-process applications as well as some basics of Unix networking. This is done through the Unix command line, and students learn basic tools and how to write shell scripts to automate common tasks. Students need a version of Unix installed on their own laptop (ideally Linux), help with this is provided in the first lab.

The course outline is as follows:

Lecture 1 - Introduction
Lecture 2 - Formulation of Circuit Equations
Lecture 3 - Direct Methods for Linear Systems
Lecture 4 - Direct Methods for Sparse Linear Systems
Lecture 5 - Iterative Methods and QR Factorization
Lecture 6 - Krylov-Subspace Methods - I
Lecture 7 - Krylov-Subspace Methods - II
Lecture 8 - Solutions for Nonlinear Equations
Lecture 9 - Modified Newton Methods
Lecture 10 - Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations
Lecture 11 - Multistep Methods
Lecture 12 - Large Timestep Issues
Lecture 13 - Digital Systems Verification
 

This course explores ethics by examining different ethical theories and their influences on economics, governance, and business. The course follows the multidisciplinary approach that we take at the Utrecht University School of Economics and in its bachelor program to broaden your perspective on economics and society. It continues the approach taken in Multidisciplinary Economics, assuming that you have developed sufficient knowledge of the basics of economic thinking. This course trains participants to reflect upon this knowledge and discuss some alternative approaches. This course revolves around and integrates the central topic of Technology and Society, and the social impacts of business in addressing various themes, such as fairness, equality, social responsibility, and sustainability. Prerequisites Knowledge at the level of the course 'Introduction to Economics and Business Economics' is assumed.

To write a letter – whether a formal, public composition or a private letter to a friend – is to create an image, consciously or unconsciously, of oneself as writer and of ones relationship with the letter’s recipient. In this sense, Roman letter-writing can be seen as a partial equivalent of interaction via social media in our contemporary world. This course explores aspects of self-presentation through published and unpublished letters and other media of communication surviving from the Roman world. Students read the correspondence of two major literary figures – Cicero and Seneca – alongside rare examples of written exchanges from ordinary people in Roman Antiquity.

This course surveys current developments in curating art, examining expanded definitions of curating (in museums and independently post-2020); and the evolving local, global, and digital landscapes for curatorial work and activity today.
With a project-oriented focus, this course equips students with the contextual knowledge as well as the entrepreneurial skill to plan, develop, and deliver a curatorial project as well as situate it in a rapidly changing landscape. Topics include (but are not limited to) the curator as auteur, facilitator, mediator, and project manager as well as contemporary curatorial approaches and research methodology. Project-based learning throughout the course examines: initiating and defining curatorial projects; sourcing artworks in private collections for object-based exhibitions; building connections and relationships with contemporary artists; expanding exhibition formats and sites for curating (including "pop-ups"); writing curatorial statements and press releases; working in a sustainable and accessible way; fundraising and budgeting; marketing and publicity; and working with digital networks and platforms.

This course is an introduction to the chemistry of foods, more specifically the chemistry of groups of compounds present in food: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, phenolic compounds, and enzymes. Chemical changes that take place during the storage and processing of crops and food are learned. In addition, during the laboratory classes, students design experiments, analyze the composition of food products, and write a scientific lab report. Food technologists should be able to estimate the relevance of various chemical and enzymatic processes by making calculations. To practice this part of food chemistry, the quantification of specific reactions is practiced in calculation cases.

In this inter-disciplinary course, (designed for students of geography, environmental science, ecology, and international development who have an interest in biodiversity and its conservation), students focus on the interactions between biodiversity and human societies. The course adopts a rigorous evidence-based approach. Students first critically examine the human drivers of biodiversity loss and the importance of biodiversity to human society, to understand how underlying perspectives and motivations influence approaches to conservation. They then examine conflicts between human society and conservation and how these potentially can be resolved, reviewing institutions and potential instruments for biodiversity conservation in both Europe and developing countries. 

This course provides a firm and rigorous foundation in current concepts of the structure and functions of biomolecules in molecular cellular biology. These fundamental concepts form the basis of almost all recent advances in biological and biomedical sciences. The course introduces and discusses biomolecular structures and functions (including protein, carbohydrates, lipid, and nucleotides) and how these biomolecules play roles in biological processes including cellular biocatalyst and metabolism. Practical sessions provide experience in data interpretation and learning of basic laboratory techniques.

This course examines the challenges of increasing travel demand, impacts on people, process of policy formulation, structure of governmental control, engagement of stakeholders and evaluation of performance. With reference to the case of Hong Kong, the evolution of the planning process and the development of policy instruments are illustrated. To provide a future outlook, an overview of recent trends and near-term prospects within the wider context of sustainability for delivery of transport services is introduced.