Biological rhythms clock arrhythmia chronobiology circadian

This module explores the role of physiological rhythms is health and disease. We will discuss the mechanisms involved in generation of physiological rhythms...

From Clock to Chaos: Biological Rhythms in Biology and Medicine (MEDC0109)

This module explores the role of physiological rhythms is health and disease. We will discuss the mechanisms involved in generation of physiological rhythms and describe how such mechanisms may go wrong during common disorders. The focus of this module is on two important biological rhythms: cardiorespiratory and sleep/wake cycles. The course uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore biological rhythms. We will discuss how mathematical models/simulation can help us to understand the mechanism of physiological rhythms and will teach the students to simulate biological clocks both in silico and in vitro. The module uses physiological rhythms as an example for the interdisciplinary nature of modern science.

This course examines the history of major cities in the Habsburg monarchy and its successor states during the period of classical modernity. It will focus on...

Urban Culture and Modernity: Vienna-Prague-Budapest, 1857-1938 (I) (HIST0782)

This course examines the history of major cities in the Habsburg monarchy and its successor states during the period of classical modernity. It will focus on the emergence of a particularly modern urban culture in Central Europe around the turn of the century, and study some of its proponents in detail.

Taking turn-of-the-century Vienna as a starting point, the seminar will discuss the emergence of leading modernist movements and ideas in the ‘backward’ Habsburg empire. We will look at aspects of Vienna’s, Prague’s, and Budapest’s urban landscape and culture, and study these in a comparative way where possible.

We will examine the development of capital cities as centres for the arts and popular culture, science and technology, industry and commerce; and analyse their architecture as well as features of every-day urban life.

We will study some of the main ideas that constituted ‘modernity’, and look at intellectual circles and networks of avant-garde artists that promoted these ideas. The different forms of nationalism and antisemitism that emerged within Central European cities will be another focus of the seminar.

The course will make you familiar both with urban history and cultural/intellectual history. To this end, a wide range of sources will be used, from specialised academic literature to diaries, memoirs, and novels; from maps and photographs to reproductions of modernist art and architecture.