English

This course aims to introduce students to the sociological study of social inequalities. That is, to gain a broad understanding of the social processes through which some end up having more resources than others and through which some become included and some excluded. In the introductory sessions, we will begin by defining social inequality and its relevant dimensions, learning about its trends in Europe and the world as well as its pernicious effects for society. Students will also learn key sociological concepts such as social class, social mobility, and ethnoracial categorization processes. In the second part of the course students will be introduced to some of sociology’s most studied mechanisms that help explain the perpetuation of inequalities in a wide range of contexts such as cumulative advantage, opportunity hoarding, discrimination, boundary making, and social networks. As a next step we will learn about some of the most relevant engines of inequality such as families and schools, labor markets, tax systems, extreme weather events, and migration systems. We will end the course by learning about how to tackle inequality. We will discuss how acceptance or opposition to it comes about and reflect on sociology’s relevance in addressing societal disparities.

In this course, students learn about the different conceptualizations of emotion both in terms of historical developments as well as contemporary theoretical models of emotions. The course considers the biological basis of emotions in the brain and the body, how emotions are expressed and perceived in faces, bodies, voice, and music. The relationship between emotions and cognitions is considered, including emotion regulation and individual differences in emotions. Finally, cultural differences and disorders of emotion are discussed.

This course studies basic concepts of biochemistry and chemistry of food as well as the basic principles of food science and natural products chemistry.  The course covers the following topics: food allergens; novel functions of dietary vitamins and its contribution to our health; food and bioactive natural products for human health; beneficial health effects of dietary lipids; chemistry and biochemistry of marine toxins; application of high pressure to food processing; protein chemistry; bioactive molecules and their application for drug discovery; medicinal chemistry of antibacterial and antiviral agents; synthetic and medicinal chemistry of marine natural products, and nutrient-inspired biomaterials and its applications for the health purposes. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course's main emphasis is on cultural heritage; it offers a bridge between the past and the future by means of the present. The course investigates the formation of the concept of cultural heritage in historical perspective and the European geographical spectrum. It also dwells on the cases of destruction of cultural heritage occurring throughout history. Starting from the shaping of urban landscapes through the ages, the course also addresses the heritage values of urban space, which are overall values derived from the integration of different components. The course provides: an understanding of the significance of urban environments through the transformations that occurred over time in relation to various political and institutional phases; a comparative view between Italian and European cities through specific examples; an ability to use sources such as aerial photos of urban settlements to identify the stages of their development from antiquity to the present; and recognition of the reasons for the shaping of Europe's cultural heritage and in particular its historical urban landscape.

Participants explore software security hands-on with the goal to develop and host an international information security contest (¨Attack/Defense CTF”): contesting teams from all over the world receive virtual machines built during the project. The machines run participants’ services, containing secret tokens ("flags") that other teams have to collect over the wire using exploits as part of the game. To build the contest, participants will dive deep into the security of a platform and language of their choice and create a software project with well-hidden software vulnerabilities in this language. Furthermore, a game server will be developed as a team, including scripts to check the health of services for each contestant. As part of the development and hosting, participants will develop and extend the infrastructure required to host the competition, strengthen their skills in penetration testing and exploitation, and build upon other technical and non-technical abilities, depending on their role in the project. Such skills may include networking, continuous integration, agile development, project management and public relations. Furthermore, students develop and extend the infrastructure, required for the competition. The course gives participants the freedom to explore tools of their choice, build software and find creative ways to corrupt it, with the work done both independently and in small teams. Insecure software is a potential threat to both the industry and the democratic society. The course supports goals on sustainability by raising awareness on IT security, and teaching the ability to detect, fix and avoid security issues in software, not only for the students, but also for the international participants of the competition. Furthermore, we support open-source, by making all material publicly available in the end.

It is impossible to obtain a full picture of Japanese economic history without understanding how global and international relationships shaped the economy of the country. This course surveys recent scholarship on economic history of Japan, East Asia, and the rest of the world in the past few centuries. Most of the reading materials emphasize global and international perspectives in the analysis of economic history.  The course discusses a wide range of key topics and methodologies in the study of Japanese economic history.

This course considers the environmental factors that control and modify human and non-human behavior. Generally, an experimental laboratory approach is taken, and quantitative theories are stressed. Topics include: classical and operant conditioning, theories of reinforcement, the stimulus control of operant behavior, behavioral analysis of problem solving, concept and language learning, choice, self control, memory, and experimental design. 

This course introduces the field of user experience (UX) design involving the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people (users) and computers, and the resulting user experience. The course covers the basics of relevant issues, theories, and insights about the human side, the technical side, and the interaction (interface) between the two, and the process involved in designing the user experience. The course includes both theoretical and practical work and requires students to take prerequisites

This course introduces students to selected ways in which human geographers seek to understand cities. It explores the relationship between people and place. Primarily engaging with London, students consider how the city has been shaped over time by its people and how, in turn the city experience has shaped and continues to shape the lives of those who live there. Students consider how the city is described, imagined, and planned through official discourses, and how people create a sense of place, of self, and of others in the city. In the fall semester, students explore the relationship between planning, architecture, design, and people’s identities. In the spring semester, students explore the relationship between infrastructure and people. Throughout students consider how human geographers engage with the lived experience of the city through the lens of, for example, ethnicity, class, and sexual identity.