English

This course will give you a beginner-friendly introduction to the Theory of Computation. The Theory of Computation seeks to categorize computational problems based on their inherent difficulty, measured by the resources (primarily time and space) needed to solve them. It also aims to explore the relationships between different problems, such as determining whether problem X is not harder than problem Y. This course will help you gain a rigorous understanding of computation, including its definition, possibilities, and limitations. Topics include finite automaton and regular language, Turing machine and its variants, computability, and complexity theory.
 

The course covers properties of the real numbers R: completeness axiom, Cauchy sequences, cardinality of rational, and irrational numbers; Topology in Rn: open and closed sets, p-norms, convergence, compactness, the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, and connected sets; Continuous functions in Rn: intermediate value theorem, min-max theorem, uniform continuity, continuity of inverse functions, implicit function theorem; Convergence of sequences and series of functions: pointwise, absolute, and uniform convergence, term wise differentiation and integration, power series;  and examples of applications to selected topics relevant to mathematical research at the center for mathematical sciences. Admission to the course requires at least 30 credits in mathematics including knowledge corresponding to MATA31 Analysis in One Variable, 15 credits, MATA32 Algebra and Vector Geometry, 7.5 credits and NUMA01 Computational Programming with Python, 7.5 credits.

This seminar examines the close relationship of textuality, storytelling and subjectivity in three canonical modernist texts: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; and Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse. Students study the period of Modernism and the distrusts and questions of the claim of human reason to be a reliable means for understanding and controlling the world. Key topics include narrative strategies within a newly structured world, textual experiments as empowering spaces for the shaken subject, and textual patterns emphasized in order to compensate for the loss of a more tangible world order. Additionally, the texts focus on textual representation served as a 'hyper-realist' depiction of the chaotic state of decay whereas story telling provided a potential panacea in a world devoid of meaning. 

This course explores the representation of women and the construction of female sexuality and feeling in a wide range of 18th-century writing. The course addresses fictional and non-fictional writing by both women and men in novels, medical works, advice books for women, and erotic literature. The course explores contemporary debates about the place of women in society, (including personal conduct), and the place of sexuality (both socially-sanctioned and otherwise). A central concern is attitudes to female feeling, from sexual passion to sensibility, and the ways in which feeling of various kinds enables conformity to, or critical interrogation of, a larger social and cultural order. Attention also is paid to the relationship between bodies and passion, the social disciplining of feeling, and the relationship between emotion and gender. Literary works are supplemented with a range of additional sources that enable students to contextualize the novels and poems and link them into contemporary debates and attitudes.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course is meant to provide theoretical concepts and managerial tools to (a) understand and analyze the main models underlying organizational behavior and people management; (b) develop and increase critical skills in decision making through the analysis of the impact of theories; c) identify problem solving approaches through discussion of case studies.

The course is divided into 3 parts: The Individual in Organizations; Group and Team Processes; Power, Politics and Conflicts.

At the end of the course, students: know the salient characteristics of individuals, work teams, and organizational processes that influence organizational performance in face-to-face and virtual work settings; are capable of analyzing risks and opportunities of different work designs, managing complex decision processes, and detecting and implementing strategies to solve organizational conflicts, particularly in globally distributed teams.

The course gives an advanced treatment of structure-function relationships in proteins, and of new practical opportunities for the use of genome-wide analyses in dissecting regulation in biological systems. Gene and protein networks are also discussed. Topics include, post-genomic science; modes of specific recognition in mediating protein interactions and DNA/protein interaction; domains and functions; and protein engineering. Students complete a guided bioinformatics coursework. This assesses individual competencies and practical skills as each student individually will have to analyze separate datasets and develop own conclusions on the function of a gene/protein within a network through the analysis of databases and literature. 

This course examines Existentialism and Phenomenology in terms of their unique and considerable contributions to the Western, and particularly French, aesthetic tradition. Students examine views on art by some of the best-known modern theorists to gain understanding of the philosophical issues motivating French aesthetic thought at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries. The course then covers a shift from a broadly existentialist view of literature to one influenced by the growing structuralist movement and reviews philosophical investigations of the arts in relation to theories of perception.  

Plants are continuously challenged by sometimes life-threatening changes in their environment. These can severely impact their development and even kill plants. Interestingly, plants can flexibly adjust their development to deal with these environmental changes. They can for example adjust root anatomy to resist drought, overall root architecture to forage for nutrients, and shoot architecture to escape from shade or submergence. In order to ascertain optimal development, plants have evolved a broad variety of mechanisms of developmental plasticity. This course discusses how plants control their development, how plants sense the environmental cues flooding and salinity, and how environmental signaling controls plant development through a combination of molecular genetics, physiology, and functional genomics.  This course combines lectures with hands-on practice in wet lab practicals and data labs. This includes practicing how to define research questions and hypotheses, how to design and perform experiments, how to collect and analyze data, and how to interpret results in the biological context. In the wet labs, learn how to carry out experiments with plants, such as treating plants with different light and water regimes, measuring phenotypic traits, and assessing molecular level changes to protein and mRNA. In the data labs, learn how to analyze large gene expression datasets using online databases to gain biological insight on how roots and shoot respond to changes in their environment. Assumed previous knowledge is plants and micro-organisms, and Plant Physiology and Development are required. Molecular Genetic Research Techniques (B-B2MGOT14) and Plants in Context (B-B2PICO21) are recommended.

In this course, students learn about vectors spaces, subspaces, bases, inner products, linear transformations, rank/nullity, matrices of linear maps, change of basis, eigenvalues/eigenvectors, Jordan normal form, diagonalization, and special classes of linear transformations and their matrices.

The course is concerned with the ways in which accounting information can assist 'internal' users (i.e. management) to make decisions and to plan and control organizational activities. Such 'management accounting' is relevant to all kinds of organizations. Although concentrated on accounting information, an important emphasis in the approach adopted in the course is the need to see the use of accounting in its organizational context and the effect it can have on human behavior. Various management accounting concepts are introduced and illustrated through practical examples of various numerical techniques. Alternative cost concepts are explored for both recording the costs of existing operations and for taking decisions about new opportunities. Special attention is given to cost-volume-profit analysis, product pricing, special decisions, and allocation decisions when resources are limited. In addition, the construction of budgets for planning and the use of standard costing and variance analysis for control are examined. The course also introduces the concept and design performance measurement systems in decentralized organizations.