English

The increasing reliance upon technological innovation, from pervasive digital computing in everyday smart phones and smart infrastructures to new forms of intelligent materials and pharmaceutical augmentation, is changing the nature of human-technology relationships. This course introduces the relationships among human-technology interface (HTI), human-machine interface (HMI), and human-computer interface (HCI), which have been rapidly developed during the past decade. The course teaches current design examples and theories of HTI as well as how they reflect the future of HTI.

This course helps students discover the history and culture of the country in which they are now staying: The Netherlands. This course explores how and when the Netherlands grew to become the country it now is. When did the Netherlands become a Republic and how come it now also has a King? How did a country that emerged out of religious wars end up among the most ‘progressive’ countries when it comes to ethical questions such as birth control and euthanasia? Why does this small country on the international scene often present itself as a moral leader? How has living below the sea level influenced political cooperativeness and social egalitarianism? How tolerant was and is Dutch society? And how ‘Golden’ was the Golden Age that brought the country its famous painters, but also built on colonial profits? Analyzing the past to make sense of the present, the course explores the most relevant parts of Dutch history and also critically reflects on the concepts and categories often used to relate these to present issues. Can we speak of ‘a’ Dutch identity, and if so, what does it mean? What are the (inter)national images of Dutch culture, and when and why were they constructed? Paintings, songs, literature, and other sources are used to research Dutch national stereotypes in their national context. In weekly tutorials, key aspects of Dutch identity such as the love of independence, tolerance, and egalitarianism are discussed while chronologically moving through Dutch early modern history and modern history. All sessions are a mixture of interactive lectures and PBL format, allowing students to share their own experiences, bring in relevant background knowledge and phrase their own questions. Short individual presentations are used to zoom in on specific famous paintings, songs, novels, and other sources related to the theme of that particular week. This course runs during both block 1 and 2. 

This course analyzes the international security environment in Japan, including its new national security and defense policy as well as its challenges. The course is a combination of lectures and class discussion – the instructor provides lectures based on their extensive experience working for the Japanese government in the planning and implementation of national security and defense policy, particularly in the fields of legislation, policy framework, Japan-US Alliance, and international security cooperation. Students are required to prepare for each class session by reading the relevant part of the White Paper in advance.

This is a multidisciplinary course on the economic, political, and social aspects of Asia-Japan relations. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects, such as economic policies; Japan's corporate strategies, and financial markets.
 

Each session is composed of two parts. The first part is based on the latest text written by Japanese scholars. The second part addresses related topics based on comprehensive texts written by Asian and Western scholars. Students are expected to write short comments after each class.  The course will feature Asian policy makers and academics as occasional guest speakers.

This course takes a critical and in-depth look at language teaching methodology in light of recent research findings in second language acquisition. Approaches and methods will be reviewed and focus will be placed on task-based language teaching (TBLT). Theoretical and pedagogical principles underlying TBLT will be discussed as background to the approach and students will explore means of implementing TBLT in their own classrooms. Finally, comparative studies examining the merits of TBLT versus other approaches and methods will be critically examined.

The course introduces the basic concepts from a wide spectrum of topics in finance including financial statement analysis, time value of money, capital budgeting, bond valuation, stock valuation, stock returns and market efficiency, portfolio diversification, CAPM, cost of capital, corporate governance, and behavioural finance. In addition, it also introduces empirical research evidences that synthesise the aforementioned topics. 

This course offers a comparative study of the institutional law of international organizations. While it is acknowledged that each organization has its own legal structure and functioning, institutional challenges and rules of different organizations resemble each other in some way, and a great deal of body of institutional rules and principles has been developed. International organizations have much in common, such as the law on membership, competence, structures, decision-making and implementation, financing, and legal personality. The course discusses the practice of a number of international organizations, including the United Nations and regional as well as subregional organizations. The course explores the law, life, and functioning of these organizations.

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and topics in organizational behavior (OB) and management. The course focuses on OB at three levels: individual, interpersonal, and collective. At the individual level, the course covers decision-making, motivation, and personality. At the interpersonal level, the course examines power, influence, and negotiations. At the collective level, the course investigates groups and leadership. 

This course examines the interactions between aesthetics, art theory, and art law. It discusses legal notions of originality, authorship, plagiarism, copying, and transformation. Contemporary art case studies include: Marina Abramović, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Prince, and Joseph Beuys. 

The course provides a basic understanding of the probabilistic models and techniques underlying the most widely used classes of stochastic processes. The main focus is on modeling aspects, which are completed by a description of some popular algorithms for simulation. Mathematical concepts are integrated with real-world applications and examples and illustrated through simulations. At the end of the course, students will have bridged the gap between their elementary probability skills and the knowledge required to understand and use basic models based on stochastic processes. The course discusses topics including conditional probabilities and conditional expectations; introduction to stochastic processes and Markov chains; discrete-time Markov chains: Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, Classification of states, Limiting properties, and Applications (e.g. stochastic models, sequential testing, and website ranking); introduction to Stochastic Simulation, Simulation techniques, and Monte Carlo methods; Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms, and Computational applications; counting processes and the Poisson process, Continuous-time stochastic processes, and examples and modeling applications. The course requires students to have solid knowledge of calculus and basic probability theory (e.g. probability distributions and random variables) as a prerequisite. Some knowledge of basic programming tools (such as R) is also required.