About Us
The Holocaust - An Introduction (I): Nazi Germany: Ideology, The Jews and the World
The Holocaust was an inconceivable historical event, which forever robbed Western culture of its innocence. As civilized human beings, we fail to understand how events of such horror could have taken place, and how an idea so inhumanly warped could have spread like wildfire through an entire continent, instigating the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews.
From Hatred to Core Ideology; From Democracy to a Totalitarian State; Nazi Germany and the Jews
The World and the Jews in World War II
The Abyss of Isolation - the perspective of the individual
The Holocaust - An Introduction (II): The Final Solution
The Final Solution and the Drive for Eliminating All Jews and All Perceived Jewish "Influences"
Jewish and Non-Jewish Responses to the Holocaust
The Free World, the last months, the Aftermath and the Implications
The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry
Who were the Jews?
Prelude to the Holocaust
Rise of the Nazis
Beginnings of war
Witness to trauma
Establishment of the camps
Deportation and extermination
The perpetrators, the neighbors, and the outside world
Central nervous system mechanisms of pain inhibition and sensitisation
Noxious stimuli evoke sensorimotor reflexes, cortical potentials, responses in the autonomic nervous system, and emotions. Robust and prolonged nociceptive input may induce peripheral and central sensitisation due to inflammation or lesions of the nervous system. Various somatosensory, psychological and pharmacological interventions are able to modulate these correlates of nociception and pain via neuronal networks in the brainstem. These supraspinal circuitries cause descending inhibition and facilitation of pain. The course deals with anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology of the nociceptive system and its modulation by brainstem modulatory circuitries.
Peripheral sensitisation
Central spinal sensitization
Experimental models
Supraspinal descending inhibitory systems
Descending facilitatory impact on nociception
Diffuse noxious inhibitory control
Advanced Nonlinear Control Theory
Virtually all physical systems are nonlinear in nature. Sometimes, it is possible to describe the operation of a physical system by a linear model, e.g., as a set of ordinary linear differential equations. This is the case, for example, if the mode of operation of the physical system does not deviate too much form the nominal set of operating conditions, i.e., one can linearize the system. Thus, the analysis of linear systems occupies an important place in system theory. But in analyzing the behavior of a physical system, one often encounters situations where the linear (or linearized) model is inadequate or inaccurate; that is the time when concepts of this course may prove useful.
The goal of the course is to address several main subjects in nonlinear control theory. We extend the notion of Lyapunov stability to systems with input i.e., input-to-state stability, show how Lyapunov stability is related to input-output stability and present/apply various nonlinear control design tools; integral control, Lyapunov redesign, control Lyapunov function.
Clinical research
The course aims to provide a comprehensive review of clinical research with emphasis on how to design and how to perform a clinical study and thus give the participant the necessary tools to perform clinical trials. The course contains a comprehensive review on how to plan and perform clinical trials involving humans. Different designs (the randomized controlled trial and other designs including more specialized designs) are reviewed and the planning of a clinical trial is presented. Power calculations are reviewed in detail in order to provide the participant with the necessary tools to give an estimate of the number of subjects needed for a clinical trial. Methods (biochemical methods, diagnostic tests, reliability, coefficient of variation etc.) are reviewed and concepts such as evidence based medicine, collaboration with the medical industry, the legal aspects of a clinical trial (how to write a contract, legal obligations etc.), how to review a paper, practical aspects of biobanks, and how to perform meta-analyses are covered. Emphasis is put on practical exercises related to the topics mentioned above along with lectures.
Control and Optimization
Optimal control is the problem of finding control for a dynamic system such that a certain performance function is minimized. The subject stems from the calculus of variations. The prompt development of optimal control in 1950s owns two inventions: the maximum principle by L.S. Pontryagin and dynamic programming by R. Bellman. Today, the stress is on developing efficient numerical methods for solving a class of optimal control problems (herein convex optimization). Optimal control finds its application not only in engineering, but also in economics, biology and logistics.
The course has two main parts, which in headlines are: (1) Optimal Control, and (2) Optimization and Applications.
In the first part of the course, we will concentrate on the foundation of optimal control. We will discuss necessary and sufficient condition for optimality, and various types of constraints. We will address the question of existence of optimal strategies. We cover two main results in optimal control theory, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation and the (Pontryagin) maximum principle. We show how the dynamic programming principle works for an optimal control problem by using the HJB equation to solve linear quadratic control problems. Moreover, we apply the maximum principle to linear quadratic control problems. If time permits we will discuss singular control and the notion of a viscosity solution to the HJB equation.
The second part of the course will be devoted to the optimization algorithms and the application of optimal control. Here, we will concentrate on convex optimization techniques: conic optimization, dual decomposition, admm, as they provide tangible methods for solving (convex) optimization problems. We will discuss software for optimization of dynamical systems.
Epidemiologi – basic principles
This course deals with basic principles of epidemiology and will prepare the students for further courses in advanced epidemiology. The course will consist of lectures and group-work based on scientific papers.
The main themes are:
Descriptive studies
Measures of associations
Observational design, including cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, case control studies
Experimental studies (randomized controlled trials)
Sources of information for epidemiological studies
Issues of precision
Issues of validity, including bias and confounding
Applications of epidemiology in different areas, including clinical epidemiology
Geometric Linear Control Theory
In this course, we will study fundamental concepts related to (finite dimensional) linear time-invariant control system such as controllability, observability and stabilizability. These basic concepts will be introduced via the "geometric approach" meaning that they will be related to various subspaces related to the matrices appearing in the system equations. This approach will enable us to introduce the important notion of (A,B)-invariant subspace (and its dual concept, (C,A)-invariant subspace), which will be used to solve the disturbance decoupling problem (and can be used to solve the problem of tracking and regulation).
Moreover, the notion of (A,B)-invariant subspace and (C,A)-invariant subspace also turn out to be instrumental in other synthesis problems like observer design, system invertibility, the minimum phase property, and output stabilizability.
Photovoltaic Power Systems (PVPS)
The objective of this course is to give an understanding of the operation, design and control of modern photovoltaic power systems. The course covers all aspects of PV systems, from solar cells and modules through PV inverter topologies and control, to PV plant design and grid integration challenges.
The course is structured in four days (lectures in the morning and exercises in the afternoon), as follows:
- Cells, panels and arrays
The operating principle of the most common PV cells and their manufacturing processes will be described, along with modeling, characterization and fault diagnostic methods for various types of PV panels.
– PV inverters –topologies and grid connection
Modern PV inverter topologies, with the best commercially used solutions, along with their specific modulation and control challenges will be presented and evaluated.
– PV inverters - control and grid interaction
Maximum power point tracking, including management of active power reserves, along with grid integration challenges will be discussed. Methods for increasing the PV penetration in the grid will be presented.
– PV plants - design and grid support
Design procedures, along with an example case study optimization algorithm, aiming to minimize the PV plants Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) will be presented. Furthermore, grid support functions according to recent grid code requirements will be discussed.
Hands-on experience will be provided in the state-of-the-art Photovoltaic Systems Laboratory, where tests on PV panel characterization, MPPT, grid synchronization and control using setups controlled by dSPACE will be carried out.