University of London, Queen Mary

As for other species, many abilities and behaviors that we take for granted - from perception to learning, communication, handedness and sexual preferences - are the result of our evolutionary history. Our history has shaped our psychology and influences our daily behavior. Are we the only species that is deceived by visual illusions? Who is the most intelligent species? Are we the only ones that exhibit handedness? Which are the mechanisms of learning? To understand what makes as human, we have to look at ourselves from a broader perspective. In this course, students explore differences and similarities between humans beings and other species. Students learn how to access and compare the mind and behavior of individuals that do not possess language such as human neonates, newly-hatched chicks and other models currently used in understanding of healthy and pathological behavior.

This class explores advertising as an evolving category of social communication within a convergent media landscape. It takes a strategic managerial perspective to generate insight into the development of advertising and the roles and processes so entailed. Students consider the consumer perspective in the light of advertising's role as a vehicle for cultural meaning. They also look at media consumption issues given the rapid growth in expenditure on digital (especially mobile) advertising communication. The course takes a multidisciplinary approach drawing on sociocultural, psychological, and anthropological perspectives.

This course offers an intermediate-level grounding in contemporary British politics and government. Students will learn about the UK's political constitution, sovereign parliament, electoral politics, public debate, cabinet government, civil service and devolved and local administrations. Students develop a breadth and depth of knowledge, and a range of capabilities, that prepare them to pursue careers in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond.

The course consists of two parts, each of fundamental importance for any serious approach to Computer Science: logic and discrete structures. Logic plays a very important role in computer architecture (logic gates), software engineering (specification and verification), programming languages (semantics, logic programming), databases (relational algebra and SQL the standard computer language for accessing and manipulating databases), artificial intelligence (automatic theorem proving), algorithms (complexity and expressiveness), and theory of computation (general notions of computability). Computer scientists use discrete mathematics to think about their subject and to communicate their ideas independently of particular computers and programs. In the course, students consider propositional logic as well as predicate calculus. Students treat propositional logic and predicate calculus as formal systems. Students learn how to produce and annotate formal proofs. As application students briefly consider the programming language Prolog.