Maastricht University – University College Maastricht

Full course description

Cognitive neuroscience is an entirely new research field that originally emerged from a combination of traditional sciences such as philosophy, psychology, medicine and biology that all investigate the principles of perception, behaviour and cognition from different perspectives.

As technical developments of different methods and tools in the field of cognitive neuroscience came forth, and as theoretical application of different mathematical and computer science-based models were used to explain neuronal functioning, additional disciplines, such as physics, mathematics, bioengineering and computer science materialized as an important part of this research field.

Subsequently, an effective research project in cognitive neuroscience requires an interdisciplinary cooperation, in which each scientific discipline contributes its respective genuine theories, models, techniques and tools for the mutual investigation of the neuronal principles of perception, attention, and cognition.

But can we really watch the brain at work? Are there ways to identify where exactly, and when exactly activation in the brain is necessary to perform a specific mental process? This course will help to give some answers on the basic principles of brain research and it will show relevant applications of these techniques in different areas of cognitive psychology.

Course objectives

• To give an introduction into the new field of cognitive neuroscience.
• To learn which methods a brain researcher can use to investigate the neuronal bases of different mental processes.

Prerequisites

SCI2034 Brain and Action and elementary knowledge of electricity and magnetism as stated under SCI-P(p. vi-viii). 

Recommended 
SCI1009 Introduction to Biology or SCI2038 Physics (or SCI1030 Physics I) or SSC1005 Introduction to Psychology or SSC2025 Memory. 

Full course description

Flowing from this objective, the course deals with the over all history of mankind, and a number of the decisive transformations involved in that history.

What sort of creatures are we? How have we evolved from and lived before we became homo sapiens? What sort of animals are our ancestors?

Important topics nearer in time are the agricultural and industrial revolutions. The agricultural or neolithic revolution has changed us and the world permanently. In a relatively brief period we went from hunting and gathering to tilling the soil and domesticating plants and animals. Why and how did we do this? Since the agricultural revolution our numbers have multiplied beyond comprehension. Societies became increasingly complex and stratified.

The industrial revolution lifted everything to a new unprecedented plane. A type of society arose, driven by industrial innovation and run on fossil fuels. We are still living in that kind of society today, so it is interesting to know how it came about.

The course will also deal with topics like the role of war, disease, religion, worldviews and finance in shaping history. Take disease. Their ways of life brought men in contact with all sorts of diseases. Especially after the agricultural revolution we had to adapt to diseases we caught from our domesticated animals. We still have to do this. Look at present day threats like bird flu. Living in some form of armed peace with diseases has always been a major characteristic of societies. How did we do this?

Finally the course also touches upon the ‘Rise of the West’. The contentious rise of Western Europe and North America as a dominant factor in worldhistory over the last 5 centuries will be the closing topic of the course.

Course objectives

• To understand some of the major issues and episodes that have shaped the history of mankind. The focus will be on themes and topics that have had or are still having long term influences on historical development.

Prerequisites

Any course in history or sociology, COR1003 Contemporary World History, or SSC1003/SSC2065 Theories of Social Order. 

Full course description

This course aims to introduce students to the general content of modern law and to the discipline of legal reasoning. These two go together. Law cannot be fully understood in abstraction of the particular way that lawyers, judges and other expert operators of the legal system look at it. Coming  out of the course, students should be able to understand what law is and how it is different from (and similar to) morality, identify the main branches of Law and their basic institutions, recognize and differentiate the principal values underlying those branches and understand the nature of legal  reasoning and be able to apply it to legal problems. 

It is often assumed that to study law means essentially to study the law of a particular jurisdiction. A Dutch lawyer studies Dutch law and a German lawyer studies German law, and there is little that they share beyond the name of their chosen profession. This picture is misleading. Despite the fact that every country establishes its own legal system, there is much less diversity in law than what one would imagine. A key theme of this course is that law arises naturally as a solution to various social problems and, to the extent that human societies face the same problems, similar responses appear almost everywhere. Even though details may vary, contract, property, inheritance, marriage, constitutions and crimes exist in almost all modern societies. Instead of focusing on specific sets of rules like the Dutch Civil Code, or the French Criminal Code, this course focuses on these widely shared problems and widely shared institutional responses. 

With regards to legal reasoning, the course asks students to create a tax, which will help them understand how law can be used as a policy tool for regulatory and redistributive purposes. In this connection, the course will also include a “workshop” where students will be asked to go through a high profile judgment and identify the logical moves taken by a court to justify its decision.

Course objectives

• To introduce students to the basic areas of law (contracts, property, torts, criminal law, international law etc.). 

• To familiarize students with the methods of legal reasoning. 

• To illustrate to students how law arises in response to social problem and how it is different from other domains such as politics and morality. 

Full course description

To describe natural phenomena and processes, mathematical models are widely used. The focus in this course shall be on dynamical models (i.e., where time plays a role) in particular those that have interaction with the environment through inputs and outputs. Mathematical systems theory provides the framework to deal with such models in a systematic and useful way. First we consider some general aspects of mathematical modeling. Then we briefly address dynamical systems without inputs and outputs - but which may show nonlinear behavior. We study basic properties such as equilibrium points, linearization, and stability. We then switch to linear dynamical models with inputs and outputs. They are used in many different areas of the natural sciences and in engineering disciplines. We discuss the following topics and concepts. Linear difference and differential equations, Laplace transforms, transfer functions of linear systems; controllability, observability, minimality; system representations with an emphasis on state-space representations and canonical forms; stability; the interconnection of linear systems including feedback; frequency domain analysis and the relationship with filter theory, Fourier analysis, and time series analysis. To demonstrate the applicability of the techniques and concepts, many examples from science and engineering are mentioned and briefly discussed.

Course objectives

• To have the ability to interpret dynamical phenomena as mathematical systems and to cast them into such form. 
• To understand the basic concepts of linear systems theory. 
• To be familiar with analysis techniques for linear systems, to understand their behavior and interaction. 
• To become familiar with some application areas of mathematical systems and models. 

Prerequisites

SCI2019 Linear Algebra and SCI2018 Calculus

The course intends to trace back current situations to their historical backgrounds. The course contents consist of a brief exploration of the philosophy of history and some issues regarding historical perspective, a discussion of the concepts of "state" versus "nation" (in anticipation of issues regarding decolonization, specific regional conflicts, and possible sources for conflict in general that will also be discussed) and a discussion of the Cold War as an influential factor in recent history. Additional course contents, under the captions of “Area surveys” and “Assessment of the current global situation” respectively, are built around a case that represents the underlying problem, and both combined will lead the students to specific source material. Examples of such cases are decolonization, the economic development of Asia, conflict in Africa, and the implications of the current position of the USA as "solitary superpower." The course discusses the main trends in politics, demography, society, and culture over the last 70 years and to put these trends in a global context. The course develops a critical attitude towards the use of historical theory, and the interpretation of historical data and processes.

This course presents the essentials of Biochemistry. It covers the structures, functions, and interactions of biomacromolecules, including proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, DNA, and RNA, which perform many of the activities associated with life. The course provides insight in the specificity and action of enzymes, the bio catalysts of the cell. Further, it explains metabolic pathways that result in the generation of ATP, the major energy currency of the cell. Finally recent biochemical understandings on genome editing are presented that revolutionize treatment of diseases at the level of correcting mutated genes (gene therapy). Prerequisites for this course are an introduction to biology or chemistry.