National University of Singapore

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.

This course provides an introduction to political and economic geography. The course advances two key arguments, namely that politics and the economy are (1) tightly intertwined and (2) innately geographical phenomenon. It explores how politics, the economy, and the environment are constituted through different sets of actors and their interrelationships. It mobilizes core geographical concepts, notably place, space, scale and territory, along with notions of power and resistance, to offer a distinctive perspective on processes of uneven development in the contemporary world.

This course explores how forbidden romance —amorous engagement in fiction and reality—became the most volatile form of cultural expression in the modern world of revolution and enlightenment. Drawing on literary masterpieces across China and the West, the course examines how the modern lure of free will and emancipated subjectivity drove Chinese intellectuals, Sinophone writers, and their Western contemporaries to redefine terms of affect, such as love, desire, passion, loyalty, and sacrifice. The course also explores how the moral and political consequences of affect were evoked in such a way as to traverse or fortify consensual boundaries and their literary manifestations.

This course introduces the fundamentals of tropical horticulture, with emphasis on the situation in Singapore, a tropical garden city. Topics include plant growth and development and factors affecting them; pests and diseases and their control; growing media; plant nutrition; tropical urban horticulture of ornamentals; vegetable and fruit crops, and native plants; vertical and roof gardening; turf grass management; landscape design; organic methods and impact of horticulture on conservation. Field trips, demonstrations, and projects enable students to enjoy hands-on experience in cultivating plants.

In this course, students study postcolonial regions in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The course discusses questions such as: what makes a region; who makes a region; how has the experience of colonialism shaped the region; what are the models of regional cooperation and integration, and whose models are they; and how do regions interact with postcolonial global structures and dynamics? Students are encouraged to compare different regional experiences and draw from this breadth of knowledge to critically evaluate the concepts and theories discussed in class.