National University of Singapore

One of the main features of Asian politics and government is the complex nexus of ethnicity, religion, and the state. This course focuses on the colonial formation and postcolonial continuation of these ethno-religious features of politics, known as the politics of identity in Asia. The course explains some major ethnic and religious conflicts in Asia; their impacts on national politics, party systems, state structures, and government policies; and the role of the state in this regard.

This course is intended for students who wish to acquire a deep understanding of systems of many particles. The course considers the fundamentals of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and is a prerequisite to advanced statistical mechanics. It covers topics including: the laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamic functions, ideal gases, and heat engines; microcanonical ensemble, canonical ensemble, Boltzmann distribution, and partition function; and an introduction to quantum gases.

This course introduces the study of martial arts in Southeast Asia from an academic and experiential perspective. Students analyze journal articles, books, and materials from social media to understand how various social, political, economic, and historical forces impacted on the production and performance of martial arts in the region. The course is complemented with hands-on sessions that further the understanding of complex historical, sociological, and cultural dimensions of various combat genres. Student assignments such as essays and group video projects reveal new ways in how Southeast Asia can be understood from multi-disciplinary perspectives.

What is “the contemporary”? How has contemporary literature since the turn of the twenty-first century engaged with some of the most pressing social, political, and cultural concerns of the current moment? This course takes the experience and representation of time as its central analytic for examining these questions. Through a range of novels written since the turn of the twenty-first century, the course introduces the emergent social, political, and cultural concerns currently occupying the contemporary imagination.

This course is highly applied in nature with two important database topics, namely, traditional relational databases and SQL, as well as non-traditional databases and NoSQL queries. Students are expected to know basic programming using Python as a prerequisite. In this course, students learn, understand, use, and apply the principles and technologies of data management to business analytics. Doing so creates two benefits - (1) students understand the complexities of enterprise business analytics much more deeply and have a set of principles and techniques to apply to wrangle these complexities; and (2) students become technically proficient and comfortable in data management technologies (like SQL and NoSQL), so they can implement these principles on their own. In this course, students gain a much broader appreciation for real-world enterprise analytics - how data management, data science/analysis and data visualization come together to build analytics capabilities for organizations. This appreciation strengthens students’ abilities to tackle the organizational challenges associated with analytics. Finally, students become more robust technically, and develop keys technical skills needed in all business analytics professionals.

This course gives an overview of quantitative finance and introduces mathematical concepts and data analytic tools used in finance. The topics include interest rate mathematics, bonds, mean-variance portfolio theory, risk diversification and hedging, forwards, futures and options, hedging strategies using futures, and trading strategies involving options.

This course covers issues concerning the causes, processes, obstacles, and consequences of democratic transition in the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia - three of the largest and the most populous countries of Southeast Asia. The specific issues to be covered include economic growth and stagnation, the middle class, capitalist rule, rural politics, political parties, military coups, corruption, electoral violence, gangsters, social movements, street protests, the monarchy, communal conflicts, and female politicians.

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 introduces different techniques of designing and analyzing algorithms. The course covers the framework for algorithm analysis, such as lower bound arguments, average case analysis, and the theory of NP-completeness. In addition, various algorithm design paradigms are studied. The course serves two purposes: to improve ability to design algorithms in different areas, and to prepare for the study of more advanced algorithms. The course covers lower and upper bounds, recurrences, basic algorithm paradigms (such as prune-and-search, dynamic programming, branch-and-bound, graph traversal, and randomized approaches), amortized analysis, NP-completeness, and some selected advanced topics.

This course introduces key themes relating to global business history. It considers how business and enterprise have contributed to the making of the modern world. It looks at key economic actors, agents and institutions of historical change, their forms of organization, their strategies and culture, their relations with state and society, and at how economic practices have been shaped by culture. Some of the themes covered include: the business firm; the nineteenth century revolution in production, distribution, transport, and communication; the rise of retailing; integration of mass production and distribution; managerial capitalism; multinationals; state -business relationships; and culture and capitalism.