University of Edinburgh

The design and implementation of efficient, effective, and user-friendly computer systems, including software objects and physical internet-enabled things, depends upon understanding both the technology and its users. Only then can designers be confident that these information appliances will be properly matched to the skills, knowledge, and needs of their users. The study of human-computer interaction (HCI) seeks to combine perspectives and methods of enquiry drawn from disciplines such as interaction design, psychology, and sociology with the tools, techniques, and technologies of computer science to create an approach to design which is both relevant and practical.

Topics include Fourier analysis: Fourier series, Fourier transform, Dirac delta function, sifting property, Fourier representation, convolution, correlations, Parseval's theorem power spectrum, sampling; Nyquist theorem, data compression, solving ordinary differential equations with Fourier methods, driven damped oscillators, Green's functions for 2nd order ODEs, partial differential equations, PDEs and curvilinear coordinates, Bessel functions, and Sturm-Liouville theory. Topics for probability and statistics include concept and origin of randomness, randomness as frequency and as degree of belief, discrete and continuous probabilities, combining probabilities, Bayes theorem, probability distributions and how they are characterized, moments and expectations, error analysis, permutations, combinations, and partitions, Binomial distribution, Poisson distribution, the Normal or Gaussian distribution, shot noise and waiting time distributions, resonance and the Lorentzian, growth and competition and power-law distributions, hypothesis testing, parameter estimation, Bayesian inference, correlation and covariance, and model fitting.

The course provides students with the analytical tools to make sense of similarities and differences across welfare states, focusing - among others - on the socio-economic outcomes associated with different welfare states, the reasons for distinctive social policy structures across countries, and the relation between public, private, and informal sectors in the provision of social policy. It illustrates these similarities and differences by introducing in detail selected national models of welfare states drawing on examples from Europe, North America, and East Asia. It reviews the role of international organizations in shaping social policy in the Global North and in the Global South. It discusses crises and opportunities for renewal that affect contemporary welfare states.

The course conveys broad factual knowledge on the military forces and infrastructure of some of the ancient world's largest, most powerful, and long-lived empires, those of Rome and Persia. Students acquire the skills to use all evidence at our disposal (material as well as written) for the topics under discussion. They gain deeper understanding how topography and geography influenced military strategy. The course provides students with the skills to assess the effectiveness of relevant military installations. Students learn to adopt a more nuanced approach to history and are encouraged to question Eurocentric worldviews.

This course offers an introduction to equilibrium thermodynamics. The course covers the First and Second Laws of thermodynamics, along with the concepts of temperature, internal energy, heat, entropy, and the thermodynamic potentials. The course also considers the applications of thermodynamic concepts to topics such as heat engines, the expansion of gases, and changes of phase. The Third Law, and associated properties of entropy, completes the course.