Hong Kong

This course examines democratization. It includes the following topics: why did some countries succeed in democratization and others failed; among those that succeeded, how did democratization occur; crucial factors affecting democratic consolidation; for those that persist as hybrid regimes, what are their characteristics and what explains their endurance; and why do democracies fail and what accounts for the recent increase in autocratizations.

This course examines the principles, mathematical models and applications of computer vision. Topics include: image processing techniques, feature extraction techniques, imaging models and camera calibration techniques, stereo vision, and motion analysis.

This course examines the psychological factors involved with human judgment and decision making. It will contrast human decision making with normative theories of rational choice, and survey psychological evidence of systematic decision biases and errors in judgments. It will discuss the heuristics and biases approach to judgment and decision errors, and critiques of this approach. 

This course examines the architecture of East Asia from prehistory to the early modern period. In addition to monumental buildings such as temples and palaces, the examples range from urban planning and garden design to peasant dwellings and nomadic structures. A number of architectural traditions are covered, including Bhutanese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur. Among the socio-cultural factors that have shaped East Asia’s built environments, it looks at Buddhism and the literati as influences traversing geopolitical borders, as well as vernacular development of structural systems, spatial geometries, and material utilization based on the land, climate, and other natural conditions.