Netherlands

This course is focused on recent developments in Nutrition Behavior Research including the physiological and psychological determinants of food choice and eating behavior. The course includes lectures, group assignments, and a computer practical. Prerequisites course in Nutrition Behavior.

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. 

Knowledge of the chemical composition and properties of food is of primary importance to ensure product quality, safety, and stability. In the lectures of this course, the effects of processing and storage conditions on the chemical composition of the major food constituents (lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins) and phenolic compounds are discussed. Examples are the modification of lipids and the importance of lipid refining, modification of polysaccharides to optimize their properties, reactivity (e.g. oxidation) of phenolic compounds, and stability & chemical reactivity of proteins. The course focuses on the occurrence and reactivity of these compounds in different food products and raw materials, the analysis of these compounds and their reaction products, and the effect of reactions during storage and processing on the chemical composition and properties of raw materials and food products. Information discussed during the lectures is applied in tutorials, digital case studies, and a practical in which students design the experiment.

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 gives an introduction to the principles behind effective operational quality systems in these complex food production chains. Major theoretical topics of the course include the relationship between food properties and quality attributes in the food production chain; traceability of food products in the food production chain; basic principles of operations management; principles of major technological tools, methods, and techniques in quality control and inspection; and introduction to major quality assurance standards. The course contains assignments related to these 4 topics. The assignments serve as a basis for critical analysis of factors influencing the actual operation of the implemented quality system.

The course focuses on cultural and artistic interventions in urban spaces and how they actively re-think and reconfigure the city. It investigates how cities can be used as platforms where new notions of citizenship, community, and the public sphere are being performed. Using concepts and theories from performance studies, urban studies, and public sphere theory, the course discusses how power relations are performed in cities daily, and how these can be critically revealed and (temporarily) disturbed through artistic interventions in public space. Next to discussing a variety of specific cases of public space intervention in class, students design and execute a small-scale intervention in public space with a small group., work on a series of assignments, and write a paper on a particular strategy of intervention. 

Prior knowledge of chemistry, physics, or mathematics is not required to enroll in the course. This course is designed for students in the Humanities or Social Sciences with no previous education in Chemistry. It may also serve as a remedial course for students wishing to proceed to a regular level 1 Chemistry course. Chemistry involves the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. Chemistry plays an important role in everyday life, as matter is everywhere and everything around us consists of chemicals. This includes humans, fauna, flora, stars, and planets, and from a somewhat different perspective food, clothes, buildings, vehicles, computers, drugs, and art.  The course includes an overview of the composition, structure, and transformations of matter and a project in which students apply chemical knowledge in a non-science discipline.

This course focuses on the estuarine, coastal, and marine processes and morphological features that determine the morphodynamic behavior of coastal systems. Coastal morphodynamics is defined as the mutual co-adjustment of coastal landforms and processes. Emphasis is on the behavior of sedimentary coastal systems, such as beaches and dune coasts, barrier island systems, tidal inlets, estuaries, and deltas. It includes the behavior of both sandy and muddy coasts. The time scales involved vary from less than a second (e.g., intra-wave processes; short-term) to decades (e.g., the coastal response to sea level rise; long-term). The course starts with the dynamics of wave-, tide- and current-driven processes and the effect on sediment transport processes and associated morphological change. The second part of the course deals with the morphodynamic character of different types of coastal systems. This is analyzed by discussing, evaluating, and quantifying the dominant processes, the relevant morphological features, and sedimentary products. Exercises, papers, and case studies are an integral part of the course and are used to develop skills in analyzing and solving coastal problems. The course also contains several lectures on coastal instrumentation (for example, remote sensing) and on the societal relevance of coastal processes in mitigating coastal erosion.

It is important to understand how public and private organizations work and how public and organizational policies are created. The course Public Administration and Organizations offers an introduction to the disciplines of Public Administration (focusing on the political science element of policymaking) and Organizational science. Central concepts and important theoretical themes are introduced, and the practical implications of theories are explored and practiced.