This module: - Introduces the students to the key issues of interaction of multiple self-interested parties (a.k.a. agents) and gives a broad survey of topics at the interface of theoretical computer science and game theory dealing with such interactions. - Provides the theoretical background and practical tools to solve problems arising in settings with self-interested participants, to predict possible behaviour and outcomes, and finally, to design multi-agent systems that would incentivise desirable behaviour. - Introduces the students to the specifics of computational game-theoretic techniques in different application areas, ranging from multi-agent systems, electronic marketplaces and networked computer systems to computational biology and social networks. - Extends and advances the knowledge obtained in other AI modules (in particular, COMP6203 Intelligent Agents).
This module builds on the foundational skills and knowledge established in Creative Computing I to develop a more sustained application of coding to creative technological approaches to art and design. You will be introduced to more advanced programming principles and languages. The concept of the algorithm – the process or rule-based nature of computing – will be explored and applied to set of individual and team-based exercises that might include game-like rules and applications, augmented reality (AR) experiences, physical computing (e.g. Arduino) and further experiments with image manipulation, robotics and AI.
This module teaches the basic data structures and algorithms which underpins modern software engineering. Without these algorithms most software would be hopelessly slow to the point of unusability. The course also teaches the principles behind the algorithms and data structures and the software engineering lessons which data structures and algorithms teach us.
Algorithms are systematic methods for solving mathematical problems, such as sorting numbers in ascending order, finding the cheapest way to ship goods on the road network or finding the shortest path in a graph. They can be regarded as practical applications of mathematical proofs, and also as theoretical models of computational techniques. This module introduces some basic concepts related to algorithms, their implementation and their efficiency, using simple examples drawn from many areas of mathematics including Graph Theory and Operational Research (no previous knowledge of these topics is required, but having taken MATH1058 may help). The main aim of the module is designing algorithms for solving a wide range of problems, studying their computational complexity, and understanding whether a given problem may or may not admit an efficient algorithm for its solution.
Algorithms and Analytics provides an introduction to core data structures and algorithms as well as the analytical tools to understand their performance. It covers the usage of algorithms for problem solving, their implementations in different programming languages and a theoretical understanding of their time and space complexity including NP-completeness. The algorithms covered include lists, sets, map, searching, sorting, graph algorithms, optimisation and random number generation, which are prevalent throughout software used in AI and Computer Engineering.
This second-year module builds on students’ mathematical and coding skills gained at an introductory level. Through this module, students build on the knowledge and understanding of fundamental principles and practical skills necessary for developing efficient algorithms to solve problems in biomedical engineering, including their implementation using a high-level programming language. These principles and skills are essential to graduates in biomedical engineering since real-world programs consist of algorithms that operate on data elements possessing an underlying structure. Selecting appropriate computational solutions to real-world problems requires understanding the theoretical and practical capabilities and limitations of available algorithms including their impact on the environment and society.
It is well established that there is "cross talk" between the upper and lower airways, so this integrated module will deal with the entire respiratory system. Normal physiology and anatomy will be taught, along with the diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and psychology of disease. Generic aspects of airways disease such as epidemiology and quality of life issues will also be explored. Throughout the module, you will explore topics by interpreting clinical scenarios to reinforce your learning. Sessions will include the mechanisms of inflammation and remodelling, guidelines for assessment and management of allergic airways disease. Upper airways sessions on rhinitis, sinus disease and polyposis will cover the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment (including surgery). Immunotherapy will also be explored. Lower respiratory sessions will include asthma and small airways disease, as well as associated differential diagnoses (e.g. cystic fibrosis) and the role of viruses and bacteria in exacerbating allergic airways diseases. Sessions exploring the heterogeneity of these diseases and how this affects disease management are also covered. The core components of effective communication skills and patient centred approaches in allergic airways disease are also addressed. This module comprehensively covers both paediatric and adult disease. Our online module is delivered using a blend of live teaching and pre-recorded sessions. You are expected to attend all live sessions which allows you to engage with our expert teachers and your fellow students and benefit from rich discussions. Our recorded sessions allow you to learn at your convenience within each teaching week. Most of our students continue to work while studying and benefit from this flexibility. Engaging with our blended learning each teaching week allows you to build on and synthesise your learning as you go. This module is taught once a year and typically involves approximately 10 hours of student engagement per week. The module will take place during the following weeks (exact timetable to be confirmed): • Teaching & guided learning: 15/10/25-03/12/25 • Self-directed learning: 04/12/25-07/01/26
During this module, you will explore all aspects of allergic skin disease in depth. The module teaches about the immunological basis for skin diseases which can have an allergic component including eczema (atopic dermatitis), allergic contact dermatitis, photoallergic dermatitis, urticaria, angioedema, and systemic allergies affecting the skin. The sessions will include detail on pathogenesis, diagnosis, investigations and management. In addition, the module covers how to clinically distinguish allergic skin disease from other similar differential diagnoses. This module comprehensively covers both paediatric and adult disease and throughout, you will explore topics by interpreting clinical scenarios to reinforce your learning. Our online module is delivered using a blend of live teaching sessions and pre-recorded sessions. You are expected to attend live sessions is strongly encouraged as it allows you to engage with our expert teachers and your fellow students and benefit from rich discussions. Our recorded sessions allow you to learn at your convenience within each teaching week. Most of our students continue to work while studying and benefit from this flexibility. Engaging with our blended learning each teaching week allows you to build on and synthesise your learning as you go. This module is taught once a year and typically involves approximately 10 hours of student engagement per week. The module will take place during the following weeks (exact timetable to be confirmed): • Teaching & guided learning: 17/11/25-08/12/25 • Self-directed learning: 09/12/25-14/01/26
The dissertation module offers the opportunity for you to apply your Masters level knowledge to solve an allergy problem. You can choose either a professional project or a research project, both of which can be based around your work and should be aimed at improving clinical care for people with allergies. Professional projects include a service evaluation, clinical audit or needs assessment based around allergy clinical services. Research projects generate new knowledge where there is no or limited research evidence available or can systematically review the literature to answer a research question. You will use your knowledge gained from the Clinical Research Skills module to design and conduct your dissertation project. The dissertation is the final step in your MSc Allergy journey. It is exciting, challenging, and ultimately can be very rewarding. Our online module includes live sessions which you should attend. These allow you to engage with our expert teachers and your fellow students and benefit from rich discussions. Tutorials and workshops take place during our live sessions which allow you to explore various aspects of project design in a supported environment. Engaging with live sessions allows you to gain support from your peers and the module leads, synthesise your learning and reflect on your progress as you go.
The module aims to provide students with an introduction to alloys additive manufacturing (AM) incorporating four aspects: production, processing, design, and sustainability. With a focus on metallic powder technologies, the module will introduce the key production technologies for the production of advanced powders for AM, reviewing the different families of alloys commercially available for AM. The majority of these alloys were specifically designed wrought technologies, so their microstructure is a direct response to hot and cold working schemes. The AM microstructures are then reviewed with a focus on the challenges to design new alloys to satisfy the growing demand for metal products AM, which is one of the fastest growing manufacturing industries in the UK and the world. Such alloy design space offers the opportunity to transform the emerging AM technology into sustainable, the parameters of such transformation are outlined in the module. Students will be taught the course material in lectures, where production and processing principles will be introduced, as well as the sustainability challenges. Video presentations of UK-based production facilities will be used to illustrate those facilities. Computational thermodynamics will be adopted to describe the microstructures resulting from AM, and to explore the compositional additions and process parameters to attain sustainable AM alloys. The modelling tools presented will provide the student with the ability to predict the microstructure and some mechanical properties for new 3D printed products. A design and modelling project will be provided to students, and the assessment will be made in groups. This module is linked to SESG3024 and SESM6044 Manufacturing and Materials, and to SESG6042 Materials Engineering for Transport Applications. Those courses provide a complementary overview of related microstructures, alloy families, alloy production and manufacturing processes. See comments above.
Alternative investment strategies became increasingly popular among investors to achieve better returns. This module looks beyond the traditional investments such as shares and bonds. It covers a range of topics that introduce the world of alternative investment strategies; in particular hedge funds, private equity and real estate investment trusts. Lectures are followed by in-depth practical examples using statistical packages, discussions and tools that show the real world implications.
The history of the post-war world has been powerfully shaped by the decisions and actions of American political and military leaders, and by the deployment of American defense technologies. This module considers the significance of humanitarian concerns within US national security discourse from the fire-bombing of Germany and Japan during the Second World War through to the start of the Vietnam War. It also examines the actual impacts of American war-making and war-fighting technologies upon the lives of others, including the population of Hiroshima, the victims of napalm in Korea, those exposed to radioactive fallout from US nuclear tests, and the inhabitants of strategic hamlets in Vietnam.
This module continues the exploration of the impact of defense technologies and humanitarian concerns upon US foreign policy from the escalation of US involvement in the Vietnam War into the post-Cold War era. It will examine the US approach to fighting the Vietnam War, including the strategy of attrition, the use of napalm, instances of atrocity, and the use of strategic bombing. It will also consider the role played by the United States in instances of genocide or regime change in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Chile, and its efforts to explicitly integrate a concern with human rights into its foreign policy from the mid-1970s onwards. The module will conclude with sessions devoted to the dilemmas confronting American foreign policy in the post-Cold War eras, looking at the first Gulf War, the intervention in Somalia and the Rwandan genocide.
The module offers a history of American cinema since 1965, covering the decline of the Hollywood studio system and the moment, from 1968 to 1975, when a new wave of directors produced a number of key films sometimes known as constituting the Hollywood art-house period, through the rise of the blockbuster in the mid-1970s, to the reinvigorated New Hollywood of the 80s and 90s. It explores whether this can be called the Hollywood post-classical period, the inter-relationship of studio and independent cinema, and historical issues such as changes in marketing and exhibition practices, and how the film industry survived the rise of television and exploited the rise of new home viewing technologies such as video, DVD, and laserdisc.
As the Puritan colonialist John Winthrop said at Holyrood Church in Southampton before embarking for Boston, American was to be ‘as a city upon a hill’, a beacon of progress and enlightenment for the world. But from the beginning, America has been shadowed by an opposite set of possibilities. Poised on the cusp between rationalism and madness, freedom and claustrophobia, progress and decay, inclusivity and violence, the American dream has always had the potential to turn into a nightmare. This module investigates the anxieties that produced American Gothic literature, at its apex in the nineteenth century, exploring themes such as religious fanaticism, landscape, normativity and monstrosity, experiments in democracy, and reckoning with race and racism. We will consider not only the distinctive characteristics of American terror in literature, but also what those fears can tell us about what it means to be an American.
For many people, the phrase “American political thought” either has an obvious meaning – some version of liberal democracy, surely – or it is a contradiction in terms – America has politics, but seems to exercise little thought. This module sets the record straight. We will dive into a unique blend of cultural and political history, contemporary politics, political ideas – a blend that, as we shall see, allowed an improbable candidate like Donald Trump to win a presidential election. This module will refute the sceptic and show that American political thought is a significant intellectual tradition that actually goes back to the 17th Century. However, as we will see, this tradition is never developed through abstract scholarly theorising. It is developed by flesh and blood political actors in actual political circumstances. This is a political theory module for those who like their theory to be genuinely political. We will study ideas in action – how they emerge through political action and how they continue to be shaped and transformed by the challenges of political events and changing social circumstances.
