Course is designed to teach

fundamentals of toxicology with an emphasis on food toxicology. Topics to be discussed include sources

and major groups of food toxins, mechanisms of toxicity, absorption, metabolism, distribution and excretion

of food toxins, dose-response relationships, major mechanisms of toxicity, and toxicity testing methods.

What moves you to act? When are you responsible for what you do? Can we ever act against what we judge to be
best? Why should we do the right thing? Is doing the right thing against my own self-interest ? unless I get
caught doing wrong? We will explore Socrates? answers to these and other thorny questions that are central to the
meaning of our lives and yet so often taken for granted. Consider: what is it to live a good life? How do you
know if your life is successful? Is it to have health, wealth and power? Pleasure? Is it something you can control?

This seminar will explore the biology and behavior of the domestic cat from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. Students will be introduced to the evolution of mammals and wild cats. The seminar will explore the domestication process and how this shaped the current behavior and biology of the domestic cat and how cat ancestry left its marks on this companion animal. The positive and negative health impacts of domestic cats will be discussed. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of feral cats, their impacts on wildlife, and their management.

?Probability and Games of Chance? will utilize classical statistics to analyze lotteries, roulette, black-jack, poker and other games of chance typically found in casinos around the world. Probability theory has direct bearing on chances of success, and yet far too many choose to participate with little understanding of the risk/reward trade-off. For example, one of the most popular games of chance is the lottery, and yet the payoff from most lottery games is significantly unfavorable to the player.

Linguistic Landscape is an area of study in sociolinguistics that examines the language of building signs, graffiti, billboards, sidewalk chalk, and public advertising in city streetscapes, downtowns, and, in the case of this seminar, on college campuses. Languages are on display all over campus, although they often go unnoticed until they offend or incite (for example, with racist graffiti). This seminar explores the linguistic landscape of UMass Amherst, asking not just what languages are visible on campus, but what visible languages do or mean to the campus community.

This course explores the errors, inaccuracies, and appropriate portrayals of common principles of environmental health science. Major films such as Erin Brockovich, The Day After Tomorrow, and Outbreak are popular movies that were based on how science and environment interacts with human health.

This course introduces students to the many histories, experiences, and cultures that shape and define the Asian American population. Through developing and applying their `sociological imagination? -- a combination of theory, concepts, methods, and results of systematic and critical inquiry -- students will explore historical, demographic, political, economic, and cultural themes, patterns, and experiences related to the Asian American population.

This course will follow the international negotiations on a climate change treaty, scheduled to be concluded in December 2015. The class will be based on discussions of current developments. Students will follow the negotiations through websites provided by the professor (such as The Daily Climate and The Guardian and Earth Negotiations Bulletin). Before class students will collaboratively identify 2 salient stories of the week, and discuss them in class.

Water is a vital resource that supports all life. It is becoming scarcer with increasing population demands and changing climate. We will explore economic, social, and environmental implication of variability in water in
the perspective of sustainability and hydrologic principles. Case studies from all over the work will be used to gain in depth knowledge of the subject for achieving sustainable outcomes.

This course will be a discussion-based and cover some of the implications of behavioral economics for individual decision making and public policy. The topics will follow along with the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008, Yale University Press).