The economic development of the United States provides an excellent starting point for an understanding of both this nation’s history and its current economic situation. We begin with the reconstruction period after the Civil War and end with the Civil Rights Era and the War on Poverty. Throughout we provide an economic reading of the events and try to explain the conflicts and resolutions in economic terms.

Requisite: ECON 111/111E. Limited to 35 students. Fall semester. Professor Barbezat.

This course studies the monetary systems that facilitate exchange. Such systems overcame the limitations of barter with commodity monies such as gold, and gradually evolved into financial intermediaries that issue paper notes and bank deposits as money. Intermediaries in markets for insurance, debt, and equity are studied too. Also, the effects of financial markets on aggregate economic activity and the level and term structure of interest rates are studied. Not open to students who have taken ECON 423.

This course uses macroeconomic analysis to examine economic relationships among countries. Issues addressed include foreign exchange markets, the balance of payments, and the implications of openness for the efficacy of various macroeconomic policies. Also included are discussions of the special macroeconomic problems of developing countries and of the history of the international monetary system. Not open to students who have taken ECON 435.

Requisite: ECON 111/111E. Limited to 50 students. Fall semester. Professor B. Yarbrough.

Independent reading.

Fall and spring semesters.

Description: The topic changes from year to year. For fall 2014, the topic is "Computational Biology." This course examines the central computational challenges that have emerged since the publication of the human genome sequence in 2001. The enormous volume of genetic and genomic data collected by biologists has required the development of sophisticated computational techniques to analyze it. This course presents the formulation of these biological data analysis challenges as computational problems.

Independent reading.

Fall and spring semesters.

This course continues the exploration of data structures and algorithms that is begun in COSC 201. Topics include balanced search trees, amortized algorithms, graph data structures and algorithms, greedy algorithms, dynamic programming algorithms, NP completeness, and case studies in algorithm design.

Requisite: COSC 112 and 201. Fall semester.  Professor Glenn.

This course will provide an introduction to computer systems, stressing how computers work. Beginning with Boolean logic and the design of combinational and sequential circuits, the course will discuss the design of computer hardware components, microprocessing and the interpretation of machine instructions, assembly languages, and basic machine architecture. The course will also introduce operating systems topics, basic memory management, and topics in network communication.

A continuation of COSC 111. This course will emphasize more complicated problems and their algorithmic solutions. The object-oriented programming paradigm will be discussed in detail, including data abstraction, inheritance and polymorphism. Other topics will include linked lists and trees and the use of finite-state machines in algorithm design. A laboratory section will meet once a week to give students practice with programming constructs. Two class hours and one one-hour laboratory per week.