Italy

This course discusses the main and most recent theories on the development of emotion regulation, with a special focus on its role in children’s learning processes. The course adopts a comprehensive biopsychosocial approach presenting 1) the foundation of the development of emotion regulation and its role for later development of healthy, competent functioning; 2) the strong interconnection between emotion and cognitive regulation; and 3) the protective role of emotion regulation when coping with internal and external sources of stress during childhood. Furthermore, research methodologies (including physiological measures) and cultural-contextual influences are presented. At the end of the course, students should be able to express knowledge about the development of emotion regulation and its role in promoting, wellbeing and learning across the life span. Moreover, they should be able to understand and apply key concepts in the development of emotion regulation real-life practical educational and clinical contexts as well as to plan a simple research with adequate methodologies for the study of emotion regulation in children. The course examines topics such as the definition of emotion regulation; methods of assessment of emotion regulation (from self-reports to psychophysiological measures); development of emotion regulation from infancy to adolescence; the polyvagal theory, emotion, and self-regulation; emotion and cognition in learning; and emotion regulation and stress. The course requires students to have basic knowledge in developmental psychology as a prerequisite

This course explores love and sexuality in Italian culture from circa 1350 to 1650. From the verses of Petrarch, to the writings of Ficino, Leone Ebreo, Aretino, and poems by Marino, love and sexuality were theorized and represented in the treatises, poetry, paintings, and sculptures of this period. Mainly on-site in the churches, palaces, and museums of Rome, this course considers the poetic, social, and visual aspects of the topic in an interdisciplinary study that examines both word and image. The course begins with Michelangelo's SISTINE CEILING and its reflection on the fall of Adam and Eve with their subsequent awareness of their sexuality. Following Leo Steinberg's theory about the sexuality of Christ, students explore the theology of nudity in Christian art as well as the “amor dei” (love for God) or mystic marriage through Baroque sculptures such as Bernini's SAINTS IN ECSTASY. The second part of the course focuses on the more secular, sensuous, and even lascivious aspects by considering the revival of ancient classical culture. Central to this evolution is the METAMORPHOSES by Ovid and the themes deriving from the many commentaries on it such as, unrequited love through Bernini's APOLLO AND DAPHNE, rape though Bernini's ABDUCTION OF PERSEPHONE, and love for the self through Caravaggio's NARCISSUS. The course concludes with exploring socio-historical, gendered topics such as marriage, courtesans, male virility, female chastity, homosexuality, androgyny, and hermaphroditism through a variety of art objects.

This course is for students who studied Italian for a short period and can express themselves using basic structures, can introduce themselves, and can talk about themselves and their daily routines. It runs at the A1/A2 level according to the CEFR level. This communicative course develops oral skills in Italian.

This course provides students with a general understanding of the different functions performed by financial markets and institutions and their role in the economic system. The course begins with a brief overview of the functions of the financial system and its connections to the real economy. The course then studies the functioning of financial markets and the main financial instruments. Finally, the course studies the economics of different types of financial institutions. The first part of the course analyzes in detail the characteristics of the major financial assets, and describes the institutional characteristics of the markets in which these assets are traded. The second part of the course studies in detail the objectives as well as the organization of the major financial intermediaries (commercial banks, investment banks, mutual funds) that allow to match demand and supply of funds when securities markets do not function perfectly. The course recommends students have background knowledge in Mathematics (applied), Management, Accounting, and Financial Statement Analysis as a prerequisite.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the political, economic, and cultural European – mainly Iberian – expansion in America during the 16th and 17th centuries as one of the key phenomena that ignited the process of early modern globalization. Early modern globalization is analyzed from the perspective of historical anthropology, stressing how the global dimension of early modern colonialism, characterized by the worldwide circulation of goods, people, and ideas, fostered unprecedented processes of cultural interaction and hybridization as well as the creation of new political and cultural identities. A proper historical and anthropological understanding of such processes requires one to go beyond traditional Eurocentric notions of acculturation and westernization in order to adequately recognize the active role played by indigenous groups and individuals in the shaping of the emerging global world. The course contextualizes the European conquest of America within a global historical and cultural framework and provides a critical analysis of historical sources and early ethnographic records. The course includes notions linked to the popularization and public use of historical and anthropological knowledge. A section of the course is devoted to the analysis of the textual sources produced in the context of European/indigenous interactions in the New World, with a special focus on how indigenous voices can be glimpsed in those incipient forms of ethnographic records that, in turn, witness the early emergence of anthropology as a constitutive facet of early modern European colonial experience. Specific attention is devoted to the early circulation of ethnographic artifacts and how their observation and description by different social actors generated diverse discourses regarding the relationship between cultural difference and shared humanity.

This course enables students to take a critical stance towards the developments within contemporary art as well as towards the manner in which art is dealt with both scientifically and in the economic practices that concern it. For this purpose it shows how the canonical conceptualization of art and the nature of art itself within the metaphysical tradition end in a crisis, in which the accomplishment of both the metaphysical way of thinking and the metaphysical form of art coexists with a new beginning of both these spheres. Rather than proceeding historically, the course involves students in a hands-on study of some core aspects of the outlined crisis, so as to foster both their artistic sense and their analytical capacities in a manner that is attuned to the environment in which they need to operate. The course discusses topics including what is philosophy of art; The first man was an artist; the economist as an artist (and vice versa); metaphysics, aesthetics, and metaphysical art; the path of modernity; art of the end and art of the beginning; space and time in painting, music, sculpture, and poetry; the science of space and time; the science of art; and artistic economics.

This course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment s by consent of the instructor. This course discusses theoretical foundations, computational properties, and use cases for some of the most popular supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques. In particular, the course addresses tasks such as classification, clustering, and discovery of rules by using modern machine learning methods and libraries.

This intensive language and culture course is conducted in Italian and is designed for students who have generally completed 1 year of Italian or have an entrance test that places them at the A2.1 or A2.2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The course is designed to help students perfect their language skills by reviewing and deepening their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar structures and focuses on the history and culture of the city of Bologna - from antiquity to the present - as a microcosm for Italian history and culture itself. Emphasis is placed on four historical periods: Antiquity (Etruscans and Romans), the Middle Ages (Guelphs and Ghibellines), the Renaissance (Bologna and the Papal State), and Modern times: Fascism, the Resistance, Neo-fascisms, and left and right-wing terrorism. Students continue to build on knowledge acquired in previous courses striving for a higher level of fluency especially in oral production in light of the goal of reaching a sophisticated level of communication with Italian university students and local residents. At the end of the course, students are able to talk about the city of Bologna, its history, and culture, and to offer their ideas and opinions using the subjunctive tense in both present and past forms. Readings are from per le vie e le piazza di Bologna as well as other sources including newspapers, novels, weekly magazines, comics, songs, and poems. The course includes a major field trip. Students select the number of quarter units from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 6.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on relevant research themes related to peer-to-peer systems, blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and novel applications that can be built over the blockchain. Nowadays, the most prominent peer-to-peer systems are related to the blockchain and distributed ledgers. Thus, the main part of this course is devoted to these topics. Bitcoin and novel cryptocurrencies gathered momentum in the last months. More and more investors look with interest to these technologies, while others label them as a dangerous speculative bubble. The truth is that the blockchain, and the alternative implementations of a distributed ledger, represent very interesting technologies, that can be exploited to build novel distributed applications. The underlying building blocks are related to many concepts and research areas of computer science in general. This course illustrates the main principles and conceptual foundations of the blockchain and the Bitcoin network. Topics covered: Introduction to peer-to-peer systems; Overlay topologies and decentralization; Introduction to Crypto and Cryptocurrencies; The blockchain: how to achieve decentralization; Transactions and transaction scripting languages; Mining; Attacks to the blockchain; Anonymity; Smart contracts.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. At the end of the course, students will have acquired knowledge on the main morphological, physiological and molecular responses of higher plants to environmental cues and the basic mechanisms of tolerance and adaptation to adverse conditions. They learn about how plants contribute to air quality by the release of biotic particulates and by interfering with air pollutants derived from anthropogenic activities. Due to changes in plant distribution in relation to climate change, students become acquainted with the contribution of alien species to the release of such biotic particulates. Students also learn about methods employed in aerobiology for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of pollen and other air-borne allergens. They gain the capacity to interpret data and critically read scientific literature relating to this topic. Course contents Module 1: role of native and alien plants on air quality synthetic description of plant anatomy and cytology; the adaptive strategies of plants to different environmental conditions; alien plants; aerobiology; pollen and pollination; main airborne bio-allergens: pollens and fungi; food allergens of plant origin and respiratory allergens of pollen origin; role of plants as organisms able to monitor the environmental quality and to influence it through the release of aero-dispersed biological material such as pollens; possible use of plants in environmental phytoremediation. Course contents Module 2: plant resilience to environmental stress; the course will deal with the main responses of higher plants to environmental cues and basic mechanisms of tolerance and adaptation to adverse conditions; introduction to plants and abiotic stress factors associated with climate change; overview of abiotic stress responses in plants at various levels: morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular; the role of compatible solutes in preventing damage under stress conditions; oxidative stress, ROS homeostasis, and the importance of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants; responses and management of salinity stress in plants; symbiotic interactions between plants and soil microorganisms under environmental stress; plant hormones: definition, classes, modes of action and involvement in abiotic stress; gene expression and environmental changes; involvement of microRNAs, transcription factors, and epigenetic changes in stress responses; abiotic stress and secondary metabolites, including VOCs.