English

The course introduces engineers and technologists to some of the techniques of foresight and scenario planning, including some of the many reasons why those techniques can fail. It is to give a rounded and nuanced view of the business environment into which technologies are introduced and some of the associated governance issues. This advanced course covers complex topics which are not suited to students with no prior knowledge of subjects related to the field.

 

The course introduces students to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) using both the current industry standard software, and the increasing number of web-based geographical tools. The course provides a theoretical background that enables students to look critically at the subject while providing them with practical skills in using these tools. Students gain direct experience of a range of data collection, data capture, database, analytical, and visualization techniques.

This course is devoted to a close reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION. The central concern of the course is to understand Merleau-Ponty’s importance for contemporary philosophy as well as cognitive science.

This course provides an introduction to African studies, especially to the Southern African Countries. While the African continent has significant legal, political and economic challenges, students are rarely introduced to the attempts of African states to set up structures to confront those challenges through regional integration. This course introduces students to the various legal, political, and economic regional integration initiatives in the emerging Southern African region.

The course features presentations from Ambassadors and Embassy officials of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), focusing on the variety of the economy and politics of the SADC region, as well as the relationship between Japan and each respective SADC state.  

This course discusses the concept of emerging countries and the transition of developing countries to emerging countries and on to developed countries. It provides an overview of economics, state and political institutions, and challenges of emerging countries.

This course offers an introduction to cryptography. Topics include: mathematical foundations of cryptography; classic cryptography; symmetric encryption; key distribution and asymmetric encryption; hash functions, MAC, and authenticated encryption; digital signatures schemes; public key infrastructure; user authentication.

This course introduces student government and politics of America, including its major elected offices (president, senators, congress persons and state governors), nomination process (caucuses and primaries), political parties and candidates, campaign issues and financing, and the general election. The course also analyzes the cleavages that divide American societies, seeking to understand how race, ethnicity, gender, religion, region, and sexual orientation affect people’s support for political parties and voting behavior.  In addition, there will be discussion on American foreign policy.  

This course examines Asia's cultures, track its political evolution from pre-colonial to post-colonial times, and explains its renewed prominence in contemporary global affairs.

This course traces technological developments and cross-cultural influences of food production in human history and demonstrates the effect of the evolution of historical civilizations up to the present. Engaging with this long temporal view helps students to reflect on the origins and effects of technological developments in food production. The course consists of three thematic and chronological blocks: the origins of agriculture (Neolithic agriculture; systems of land exploitation); the global diffusion of plants and animals (separation between Old and New World; Columbian Exchange); and the development of modern industrial food technology (changes in food processing technologies and consumption practices; industrial revolution; role of science in food production). 

This course provides an introduction to the theory and practices of economic policy-making. To understand economic policy-making, students take an economic as well as a political perspective. Students focus on the rationale behind economic policies, and seek to understand major changes in economic policy, and variation in policies across countries. Students also look at individual preferences for these policies, and their implications for the policy-making process. In the process, the course covers areas such as economic liberalization, financial regulation, labor market policies, and policies of poverty reduction and social insurance. The course takes an empirical and comparative approach, and its focus is generic, though most of the literature is concerned with policy-making in EU and OECD countries.