Italy

This course analyzes advanced management practices in complex business environments and offers a comprehensive introduction to Lean Management, a model derived from the diffusion of the principles and tools originally developed at the Toyota Motor Company. The course emphasizes the organizational, managerial, and human aspects of Lean Thinking and illustrates its adoption in a variety of industries and business functions. It analyzes how firms should design and implement lean systems and offers a framework to undertake and sustain lean transformations. It illustrates how the adoption of Lean Thinking principles and tools affect managerial decision making and problem solving, eliminating waste and variability. It also elaborates on recent trends such as the application of lean thinking to innovation (Lean Product and Process Development), to entrepreneurship (Lean Startup Method), to sustainability (Lean & Green), as well as its connection to the Agile movement.

This course provides students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. Authentic materials (songs, videos, advertisements, and film clips) are used in a communicative-based approach, and emphasis is placed on the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students participate on field trips take them outside the classroom to engage with the city and Romans to reinforce their skills. The course is conducted entirely in Italian.

This course provides an advanced understanding of the python programming language and its main features through various applications in many fields. Students use procedural and object-oriented programming language concepts in real programs; combine programming techniques to solve problems of varying degrees of difficulty in applied fields; find and understand programming language documentation to learn new information needed to solve programming problems; and implement problem solving strategies. Course topics include input/output in Python, classes, databases management with Python, computer simulations, and agent-based modeling. Prerequisites: an introductory course on python programming or similar language (e.g. Java, C, etc.).

In this Italian language CEFR A1 level course, students learn to understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Students learn how to introduce themselves and others, and to ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know, and things they have. The course will review communicative functions including: introducing oneself and saying and asking for personal information; greeting and answering greetings; saying thanks and replying; apologizing and replying to apologies; looking for, asking, and giving information in daily university student life; expressing one’s tastes, needs (physical and non), and interests; asking and saying the time; asking and saying the date; giving and understanding simple instructions; identifying and briefly describing people, objects, and places; asking and understanding information about the Italian language (What's the Italian for "x," How do you spell "x,” What does "x" mean?); and being formal and informal. Topics and vocabular include introducing people, relatives, and friends; description of places and people; study and work; shopping; and food.

Public institutions and non-profit organizations play a fundamental role in today's economic systems as policy designers, public service-providers, grant-makers, and advocates of unmet ever-changing human needs. As their goals are different from those pursued by business companies, managers working in these organizations perform different tasks, follow different logic and must develop different skills. At the end of this course students understand these differences, are able to assess how successful public/nonprofit managers behave, are aware about which mistakes to avoid, and apply this learning to perform basic tasks connected to the overall creation of public value that public/non-profit organizations produce for their communities. The course is divided into 2 parts. Part 1: Public policy and public management (governments and their structure; role of bureaucracies; types of bureaucrats and how to motivate them; decision-making and performance evaluation in public agencies). Part 2: Non-profit management (role of the third sector in the economy; types of non-profit organizations: an overview; governance and management of non-profit organizations; how to secure contributed income: key successful factors in fundraising).

The main objective of this course is twofold: to provide a wide perspective of Intercultural dialogue through the Human Rights lens, and to bridge the gap between the theoretical framework and the design, implementation, and evaluation of concrete interventions. The course contributes to building intercultural competences (knowledge and practical skills) respectful of human rights and facilitates the work of psychologists with both individuals and the community in a multicultural setting. The course reviews definitions and general principles including what are human rights, what is intercultural dialogue, what is their relationship; from moral claims to international human rights law; intercultural dialogue – pre-conditions: democracy, rule of law, and equal enjoyment of rights; conditions conducive to intercultural dialogue: respect for human dignity, non-discrimination, promotion of equal opportunities, and adoption of positive measures; and human rights related to intercultural dialogue: freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and right to respect for private life. The course discusses managing intercultural dialogue and diversity through topics including intercultural dialogue actors: the state, local authorities, civil society, minority groups, cultural institutions, the education and health sectors, private sector, media, etc. The course explores balancing diversity and unity trough intercultural dialogue including avoiding assimilation; avoiding cultural relativism; addressing discrimination and countering hate speech; protecting vulnerable groups; and psychological assistance to victims of discrimination, harassment, hate, and violence (hate speech and hate crime, including violence against women and domestic violence). The course examines case studies and best practices including the wearing of religious symbols in public areas; immigrants and the hosting society: intercultural integration as a two-sided process; freedom of expression vs prohibition of hate speech; domestic violence and violence against women: the so-called honor crimes; parental wishes in matters concerning the raising and education of their children vs the child best interest; and the notion of gender vs the notion of sex.

This course provides: (i) a working knowledge of the most important aspects of the linear regression model; and (ii) basic tools needed to understand and critically interpret empirical research conducted by others as well as to plan and conduct empirical analyses using economic data. The key concepts of the underlying statistical theory are covered, but major emphasis is placed on application of the theory from a practical standpoint. The course also provides an introduction on how to conduct empirical analysis of economic data using Stata, a statistical software package. Prerequisites: Sound knowledge of mathematics and statistics.