Training

The students have to attend at least 140 hours of courses (overall in 3 years, the earlier the better).
Each PhD student is expected to:
  • attend and take the exam of three or more courses involving at least 80 hours of lectures in total. These courses should be selected among the ones made available by our PhD program and by the other 4 PhD programs of PhD-AI.it;
  • attend at least additional 60 hours of training activities provided exclusively for PhD students by the universities and research institutions of PhD-AI.it (or from other Italian and International institutions, subject to authorization of the PhD Board)
  • attend two PhD schools organized by PhD-AI.it (the corresponding hours are included in the 60 hours above)
The additional 60 hours of training activities may include:
  • cycles of seminars and doctoral schools, organized by university or research institutions external to PhD-AI.it (subject to the authorization of the PhD Board), with specific indication that they are aimed exclusively or mainly at doctoral students.
The additional 60 hours of training activities may include, up to a maximum of 20 hours:
  • activities on soft skills, research management, European and international research systems, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, etc., organized by the university or research institutions of the PhD-AI.it.
Below you’ll find a list of selected courses provided by the partner institutions.

Ph.D. Courses

3D Geometry Representation and Processing for Deep Learning

Institution: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Location: University of Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Paolo Cignoni, Massimiliano Corsini, Daniela Giorgi, Luigi Malomo
Email: paolo.cignoni@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 32
Timetable: https://sites.google.com/view/3d-geom-learning/home
Abstract: The course deals with 3D shape analysis and geometry processing, which are key topics in Computer Graphics, Vision and Digital Fabrication. The course introduces well-established and recent geometric concepts and tools (curvature and geodesics, spectral methods, computational topology, topological persistence), emphasizing the discrete and computational viewpoint. In the last decades these topics have attracted the attention of many researchers thanks to the fast-paced growth of the research in 3D, pushed by the technological advances in gaming, machine learning, autonomous navigation, biomedical, digital cultural heritage, computational fabrication, etc. The aim of the course is to let math students appreciate how geometry is successfully used in applied sciences; and to provide computer science students the mathematical basis needed to efficiently tackle open issues in such a lively research field.
Syllabus: Continuous and discrete Representations for 3D surfaces
(Discrete) Differential Geometry
Geometry (pre)Processing (sampling, converting, reconstructing)
Deep Learning on Surfaces
Applications

Advanced Methods for Complex Systems I

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Diego Garlaschelli
Email: diego.garlaschelli@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: Scheduled 07/02/2022 – 18/02/2022 – check www.imtlucca.it for updates
Abstract: This interdisciplinary course aims at introducing rigorous tools from statistical physics, information theory and probability theory for investigating real-world complex systems arising in different fields of research. First, some key aspects of complexity encountered in physical, biological, social, economic and technological systems will be reviewed. Then, emphasis will be put on the construction of theoretical models based on the concept of constrained randomness, i.e. the maximisation of the entropy subject to suitable constraints. This will lead to the introduction of maximum-entropy models that serve as mathematical benchmarks for the properties of highly heterogeneous systems. Special cases of interest for this first part of the course include statistical ensembles of time series and correlation matrices with given properties. Applications to pattern detection in econophysics and neuroscience will be discussed. Full mathematical derivations of the models, as well as methods of statistical inference and model selection for data analysis will be provided. Lecture Contents. From Complexity to Thermodynamics. From Thermodynamics to Statistical Physics. Entropy in Probability Theory. Entropy in Information Theory. Empirical patterns in univariate time series. Empirical patterns in multivariate time series. Community detection for correlation matrices.
Syllabus: http://www.imtlucca.it/sites/default/files/20211027-all-courses-list.pdf

Advanced Methods for Complex Systems II

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Diego Garlaschelli
Email: diego.garlaschelli@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: Scheduled 02/05/2022 -16/05/2022. Check www.imtlucca.it for updates
Abstract: The second part of the course “Advanced Methods for Complex Systems” focuses on advanced practical applications of the concepts introduced in the first part. In particular, emphasis will be put on the successful areas of pattern detection and network modelling. Network pattern detection is the identification of robust empirical patterns (like scale-invariance, clustering, assortativity, reciprocity, motifs, etc.) that are widespread across real-world networks and that deviate systematically from some null hypothesis formalised in terms of a suitable random graph model. The models introduced in part 1 will then be used here for pattern detection purposes. Similarly, they will be used for modelling the properties of real networks in terms of explanatory factors.The course will include a combination of recent and ongoing research in the NETWORKS unit at IMT Lucca, thereby offering directions for possible PhD projects in this area. Lecture Contents. Complex networks: robust empirical properties. Maximum-entropy network ensembles. Networks with given degree sequence. Maximum likelihood parameter estimation in network ensembles. Pattern detection in networks. Reciprocity and the Reciprocal Configuration Model. The International Trade Network (econometric vs network modelling).
Syllabus: http://www.imtlucca.it/sites/default/files/20211027-all-courses-list.pdf

Advanced statistical methods for the analysis of the short-term effect of environmental exposures on population health

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni, Viale Morgagni 59 Firenze
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Michela Baccini, Francesco Sera
Email: francesco.sera@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: June 2024
Abstract: This course will offer a thorough overview of established
approaches and recent advancements in methods for the analysis of the short-term effects of environmental exposures (e.g. air pollution, extreme temperatures) on human health. We will address the following topics:
1) Generalized Linear Models for the analysis of mortality and morbidity time series,
in the presence of delayed and non-linear effects (use of Distributed Lag Non Linear
models in frequentist and Bayesian frameworks).
2) Potential outcome approach to causal inference to estimate counterfactual exposure-response functions representing the short-term effect of environmental exposures, with investigation of effect modification and interaction effects.
3) Methods for assessing the impact of actual, hypothetical and future exposures on health, with focus on projections under alternative climate change and air pollution scenarios.
Syllabus: – Analysis of epidemiological time series through Generalized Linear Models
– Distributed Lag Non Linear models
– Causal Inference methods
– Health impact assessment

Advanced Topics in Econometrics

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Francesco Serti
Email: francesco.serti@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: 8,9,10,16,29 Giugno + 1,5 Luglio
Abstract: This module covers some of the most important methodological issues arising in any field of applied economics when the main scope of the analysis is to estimate causal effects. A variety of methods are illustrated using theory and papers drawn from the recent applied literature
Syllabus: 1 Causality, Randomized Experiments, and Directed Acyclic Graphs
a) Basic questions in empirical research
b) Rubin Causal model
c) Social Experiments
d) Directed Acyclic Graphs
e) Randomization Inference
2 Regression and Causality
a) Properties of the Conditional Expectation Function
b) Bad controls
c) Sources of bias
d) Conditional Independence Assumption
3 Instrumental variables
a) Basics/recap
b) IV and causality
c) IV with heterogeneous treatment effects – LATE
d) Weak instruments
e) The bias of 2SLS
f) Popular IV designs
4 Matching
a) Covariate Matching
b) Propensity Score Matching
c) Inverse Probability Weighting
d) Entropy balancing
e) Regression adjustment
5 Differences-in-Differences
a) Basics/recap
b) Regression Differences-in-Differences
c) Robustness checks and picking a suitable control group
d) DiD with heterogeneous treatment effects and heterogenous policy adoption.
6 Regression Discontinuity Design
a) Sharp RD
b) Fuzzy RD
c) Continuity-based and local-randomization approaches
d) Parametric vs. non-parametric approaches
7 The Synthetic Control Method
a) Basics
b) Extrapolation and interpolation biases
c) Multiple treated units
d) Placebos, robustness checks, and inference
8 Machine Learning (ML) tools for Econometrics
a) ML to build counterfactuals when no control group is available
b) ML to select control variables and/or instruments
c) ML to study heterogeneity of treatment effects
The assessment is based on producing a short empirical project using one of the methods studied in class.

Advanced Topics in Machine Learning

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco 19, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Classroom to be defined
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Gnecco
Email: giorgio.gnecco@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: Lectures currently scheduled in the following days: 14/9/2022 (4pm-6pm), 19/9/2022 (11am-1pm), 21/9/2022 (4pm-6pm), 27/9/2022 (11am-1pm), 7/10/2022 (11am-1pm)
Abstract: The course provides an introduction to the theory behind some advanced machine learning techniques, including some topics of recent research. MATLAB implementations of most of the techniques examined in the course are described in the related course “MATLAB for Data Science”.
Syllabus: Lecture 1: Online learning: the perceptron learning algorithm and the LQG online learning framework.
Lecture 2: Convergence analysis of batch gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent. Backpropagation.
Lecture 3: Applications of linear and nonlinear approximation techniques to optimal control problems and reinforcement learning.
Lecture 4: Trade-off between sample size and precision of supervision.
Lecture 5: Matrix completion and its application to recommendation systems.

Agent-Based Macroeconomics

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Andrea Roventini, Marcelo Pereira, Francesco Lamperti, Maria Enrica Virgillito
Email: andrea.roventini@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 35
Timetable: To be decided. The course might be structured in a first module of 10 hours, and a second one of 25. Please contact the lecturers for further information.
Abstract: Agent-based models are increasingly employed across natural and social sciences to study the behaviour of complex evolving systems. The first module of the course (Introduction to Agent-based Economics, 10 hours) introduces and discusses the building blocks of agent-based economic models, their behavioural foundations, simulation techniques, empirical validation and use as virtual policy laboratories. The second module (Agent-Based Macroeconomics, 25 hours) provides a comprehensive overview of agent-based modelling in macroeconomics, focusing on the explanation of aggregate economic phenomena (e.g. the emergence of financial crises, boom and bust credit cycles, divergence in growth) as emergent properties stemming from the interactions of boundedly rational heterogenous economic agents.
Syllabus: – Agent-based computational economics
– The limits of DSGE models
– Why agent-based macroeconomics?
– The Island model
– The Keynes meeting Schumpeter (K+S) model
– The labour-enhanced K+S model
– The Dystopian Schumpeter meeting Keynes model

AI Engineering: concepts and research opportunities

Institution: University of Pisa

Location: Sala Seminari Est, Largo Bruno Pontecorvo 3, University of Pisa

Type: Ph.D. course

Attendance Mode: Blended

Lecturer: Humberto Torres Marques Neto  (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil) 

Email: humberto@pucminas.br

Academic Year: 2023/2024

Semester: 2

Timetable: 

April 10th from 11am to 1pm

April 11th from 9am to 1pm

April 17th from 11am to 1pm

April 18th from 9am to 1pm

May 15th from 9am to 11am

May 16th from 9am to 11am, 2024

Abstract: When we talk about building software solutions, we are expected to hear those solutions be intelligent and based on artificial intelligence. Many efforts have been made in the last few years to create and validate artificial intelligence algorithms and tools for different domains. However, integrating these intelligent software in complex computational ecosystems is not always trivial. According to the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University – SEI@CMU, AI Engineering proposes combining system engineering, software engineering, computer science, and human-centered design to create AI Systems to be scalable, robust, and secure for running in complex contexts and with a minimum predictability of maintenance and budget. This course will present concepts and discuss research opportunities for some aspects of AI Engineering, like the processes and their ethical issues, requirement engineering, software architecture, software quality, deployment,
maintenance, as well as the usage of AI to code AI Systems. For this course, we expected students to use the discussed concepts and present two seminars using data from some large-scale systems, like online social network data and open government data, in the broad context of an AI System.

Topics of lectures:

  • Software Engineering for AI and AI for Software Engineering
  • Software Processes for AI Systems
  • Ethical Issues in Software Processes
  • Software Requirement Engineering for AI Systems
  • Software Architecture for AI Systems
  • Software Quality and Deployment of AI Systems
  • Evolution and Manteinance of AI Systems
  • Using AI to Implement AI Systems

AI Ethics Today

Institution: Università di Trento
Location: Trento, via Sommarive 9, Polo Scientifico Fabio Ferrari (Povo 1)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Prof. James Brusseau
Email: iecs.school@unitn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: TBD

Abstract: The ethical elements of artificial intelligence will be located and discussed, and students will become proficient in forming their own strong arguments.

The course will center on nine ethical principles commonly employed in today’s AI ethics:
Individual ethics: Autonomy, Human Dignity, Privacy
Social ethics: Fairness, Solidarity, Sustainability
Technical ethics: Performance, Safety, Accountability
By analyzing and discussing case studies, students will learn how the principles are being applied today in academic and real-world discussions. Also, some topics in the contemporary philosophy of artificial intelligence will be briefly considered.

Syllabus: March 7 – 11, 2022: M T W Th F, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
March 14 – 18, 2022: M T W Th F, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.

AI in Accounting Environment

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: on Teams
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: No
Lecturers: Mariarita Pierotti e Federica De Santis
Email: mariarita.pierotti@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: 5 seminari da 2 ore ciascuno
Abstract: The course focuses on the implications that the digital transition has produced and will produce in the near future in the Accounting Environment.
The accounting domain was not immediately at the forefront of the digital transformation of the society, as it was for healthcare, as a way of example. Even in the business contexts, accounting has not been the primary function to be involved in digital transition programs. Nevertheless, its labor-intensive nature, the repetitiveness of accounting tasks, and the presence of strict compliance requirements make accounting a prime target for the introduction of digital technologies such as robotic process automation and Artificial Intelligence.In the field of accounting (AE), the innovation generated by new technologies makes it possible to trace emerging trends in research.
During the course, the most significant contributions on the topic of recent literature will be presented and discussed, so students will have the opportunity to deepen or learn about topics on which research can usefully focus.
Syllabus: This course aims at introducing students to the most significant contributions on the topic of recent literature.
The analysis of digital transition involving business contexts in general, and particularly the accounting environment, provides students with significant opportunities to develop interdisciplinary research projects, which make it possible to combine technical skills in the field of ICT with business knowledge, and with theoretical approaches belonging to economic and management science.
Learning outcomes.
At the end of the course students will have the theoretical knowledge of recent literature on this topic and they will be able to find some research gap for contributing to the scientific debate.

Analysis of Survey data and Small Area Estimation

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Pisa, Polo didattico Le Piagge, room to be defined
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Monica Pratesi – Francesco Schirripa Spagnolo
Email: francesco.schirripa@ec.unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 42

Timetable: Lectures will be held every week in the semester 2 on:

– Monday, 12:15 – 13:45 (Teams)

– Thursday, 12:15 – 13:45 (Teams)

– Friday, 12:15 – 13:45 (Teams)

Abstract: The course offers a review of the main Small Area Estimation Methods and teach how to apply them to European survey data to have a local monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and to estimate deprivation and inequality indicators, focusing also in aggregating Multidimensional Indicators and on conceptualizing, defining and measuring poverty under the capability approach. The course will be structured in the following parts

1) Analysis of the collected data for estimation and testing for the phenomenon under study; definition of planned and unplanned domains.

2) Direct and indirect estimates for unplanned domains; R codes for the application of the SAE estimators (EURAREA and SAMPLE project libraries)

3) quality issues in SAE and usage of SAE in European Statistical System.

At the end of the module student will be able to deal with small area estimation both at the theoretical and empirical level and to apply aggregation methods to indicators from the European survey data.

Students will learn the fundamental small area methods and what might be the problems that arise in the application of them and in the definition of their statistical quality.

Syllabus: The course introduces a range of quantitative tools commonly used to provide indicators of poverty and living conditions at local level.

It covers the definition of poverty and living conditions indicators (see Laeken Indicators of Poverty and/or Multidimensional Indicators of poverty, as an example), design based and model based estimates using survey data with an emphasis on the ways in which they are applied to obtain local data and indicators when the domains of study are not planned in current surveys and there is the need to have statistically sound estimates (with acceptable Coefficient of variation).

The course (6ECTS) will be structured in the following parts

1) Analysis of the collected data for estimation and testing for the phenomenon under study; definition of planned and unplanned domains.

How the small area method works: rationale of the small area method, data sources and statistical modeling
Data requirements to produce small area estimates (introduction to the data available in Europe: annual survey, censuses, administrative data), European Poverty Data (data sources), Level of analysis in different countries (European countries)
Sample design and estimation

2) Direct and indirect estimates for unplanned domains; R codes for the application of the SAE estimators (EURAREA and SAMPLE project libraries) 3) quality issues in SAE and usage of SAE in European and USA Statistical System.

How to use R functions to produce small area estimates
Interpretation of the results: point estimates and their accuracy – Quality of the small area estimates
Operational aspects to put the method in practice in Developed and Developing Countries (flow chart of the data production process, institutions involved, dissemination of the estimates)

3) quality issues in SAE and usage of SAE in European Statistical System

Answer Set Programming

Institution: Università dell’Aquila
Location: L’Aquila, Coppito, Edificio Turing, A1.10
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Stefania Costantini and Abeer Dyoub
Email: stefania.costantini@univaq.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: To be defined
Abstract: Answer set programming (ASP) is a form of declarative programming oriented towards difficult search problems. ASP is an outgrowth of research on the use of nonmonotonic reasoning in knowledge representation and reasoning. It is particularly useful in knowledge-intensive applications, and is widely adopted also in industrial settings. ASP in fact offers a fully declarative, intuitive language for modelling and problem encoding, and efficient highly optimized inference engines (“solvers”) which are freely available. The course covers both theory and practice, proposing significant case-studies.
Syllabus: 1. Answer Set Programming (ASP) semantic foundations; 2. ASP applications and examples.

Approximate Bayesian Computation

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Firenze, Viale Morgagni 59, dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fabio Corradi, Cecilia Viscardi
Email: fabio.corradi@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: June-July 2024
Abstract: The course introduces Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) – a class of likelihood-free methods for Bayesian inference.
Topics presented during this course: ABC as an explanation of how Bayes rule works; Generative models; ABC with no approximation; Sources of approximation in ABC; Rejection ABC and its convergence to exact Bayesian computation; Limits in the use of Rejection ABC by examples; Examples from network analysis and Population genetics; Trade-off between level of approximation and computational efficiency; Importance Sampling ABC; Markov Chain Monte Carlo ABC. Sequential methods: Population MC and Sequential MC.
At the end of the course, we provide an introduction to some more advanced topics, possibly related to students’ research interests, to be further developed in a presentation given by the students during the last lecture.
Syllabus: na

Basic Linear Algebra and Statistics for Neuroscience

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco 19, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Classroom to be scheduled
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Stefano Gnecco and Francesco Serti
Email: giorgio.gnecco@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 30
Timetable: 17/11/2021: 16-18; 22/11/2021: 9-11; 24/11/2021: 9-11; 29/11/2021: 9-11; 1/12/2021: 9-11; 2/2/2022: 9-11; 3/2/2022: 9-12; 4/2/2022: 9-11; 7/2/2022: 14-16; 8/2/2022: 14-16; 11/2/2022: 14-16; 23/2/2022: 9-11; 24/2/2022: 14-16; 25/2/2022: 16-19

Abstract: Linear Algebra part (Gnecco, 10 hours): This course provides a basic introduction to linear algebra to students with no (or minimal) background on it. The emphasis is on the description of some applications of linear algebra, including some of interest to students in neuroscience, such as basic image processing, principal component analysis, and spectral clustering. More advanced material will be provided upon request to students having already a solid bakground in linear algebra.

Statistics part (Serti, 20 hours): This part of the course will provide students with an introduction to probability and statistics and it will be focused on topics that are particularly relevant to neuroscience. The lessons will be designed for students with a minimum knowledge of the subject.

Syllabus: Linear Algebra part (Gnecco, 10 hours):

Lecture Contents:
– Historical introduction.
– Sum of two matrices, scalar multiplication, convex combination. Application to image processing.
– Vectors, vector norms, and transposition. Application to movie ratings and digit recognition.
– Product of a row vector and a column vector, cosine similarity. Application to movie ratings.
– Matrix product. Application to image processing.
– Linear systems, Gaussian elimination, Cramer’s rule. Application to cryptography and to computed tomography.
– Least squares. Application to score prediction in races.
– Eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Application to graph centrality and spectral clustering.
– Matrix powers. Application to genetics.
– Principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis, singular value decomposition. Application to image processing.
– Markov chains. Application to games and web surfing.
– Exercises on the blackboard on the following topics: sum of matrices, scalar multiplication, matrix product, Cramer’s rule, Gaussian elimination, eigenvectors and eigenvalues, determinants.

Statistics part (Serti, 20 hours):

Lecture Contents:
The topics covered will be:
– Introduction to probability: random variables, discrete and continuous distributions
– Introduction to statistics: definition of statistical model, estimate and estimator, point estimation and interval estimation
– Statistical tests: parametric and non parametric tests
– Analysis of Variance: one-way and two-way ANOVA
– Relation between variables: linear model, multiple regression

Bayesian methods for high-dimensional data

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Florence, viale Morgagni 59 50134, Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Francesco Stingo
Email: francesco.stingo@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: May 2023
Abstract: Bayesian approaches for model selection and inference in the context of: Linear regression,
GLM, Semi-parametric regression and other topics (e.g., mixtures, graphical models).
With applications in bio-medicine, with a particular focus on genomics.
Syllabus: Na

Big Data Ethics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Officine Garibaldi, via Gioderti 39, Pisa
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Anna Monreale, Salvatore Ruggieri, Giovanni Comandè
Email: anna.monreale@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 22
Timetable: TBA
Abstract: The module aims to introduce ethical and legal notions of privacy, anonymity, transparency and non-discrimination, also referring the Directives and Regulations of the European Union and their ongoing evolution. The module will show technologies for Privacy-by-Design, for predictive model auditing and for protecting the users’ rights and that allow the analysis of Big Data without harming the right to the protection of personal data, to transparency and to a fair treatment.
Syllabus:

Big data sources, crowdsourcing, crowdsensing

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Officine Garibaldi, via Gioderti 39, Pisa
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Tiziano Fagni
Email: tiziano.fagni@iit.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: TBA
Abstract: This module presentes techniques and methods for acquisition of Big Data from a large sources of data available, including mobile phone data, GPS data, customer purchase data, social network data, open and administrative data, environmental and personal sensor data. We discuss also several participatory methods for crowdsourcing or crowdsensing collection of data through ad hoc campains like serious games and viral diffusion.
Syllabus:

Bioinformatics

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: Pisa, piazza dei Cavalieri 7
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Francesco Raimondi
Email: francesco.raimondi@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 40
Timetable: February – April
Abstract: Aim of the course is to provide students with the basic knowledge of bioinformatics techniques as an easy and friendly support for their study and research careers. This will entail: 1) theory of the most common bioinformatics algorithms and resources: who they are, what they do and why they are so important and increasingly used in modern biology research; 2) basic practical experience through hands-on-sessions on typical problems that can be answered by using popular online tools.
Syllabus: Introduction to bioinformatics
Biological databases
Pairwise sequence alignments
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST)
Multiple sequence Alignment
Protein analysis and Proteomics
Introduction to Protein structure and prediction

Bioinformatics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Nadia Pisanti
Email: nadia.pisanti@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 48
Timetable: https://www.di.unipi.it/en/education/mcs/timetable-wif
Abstract: This course has the goal to give the student an overview of algorithmic methods that have been conceived for the analysis of genomic sequences. We will focus both on theoretical and combinatorial aspects as well as on practical issues such as whole genomes sequencing, sequences alignments, the inference of repeated patterns and of long approximated repetitions, the computation of genomic distances, and several biologically relevant problems for the management and investigation of genomic data. The exam has the goal to evaluate the students understanding of the problems and the methods described in the course. Moreover, the exam is additionally meant as a chance to learn how a scientific paper is like, and how to make an oral presentation on scientific/technical topics, that is designed for a specific audience.
Syllabus:

Brain Networks

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza San Francesco 19, S Francesco Complex
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tommaso Gili
Email: tommaso.gili@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: Expected 11-27 October 20221
Abstract: We shall provide the tools to measure and analyze the different kinds of networks that can be defined when studying the human brain (e.g. the functional and the structural one).
Syllabus: https://www.imtlucca.it/sites/default/files/20211027-all-courses-list.pdf

Bringing Perception to Social Robots: An introductory course

Institution: Università di Trento
Location: Trento, via Sommarive 9, Polo Scientifico Fabio Ferrari (Povo q), Garda room
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Paolo Rota, Yiming Wang
Email: iecs.school@unitn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: May 9, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 10, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 11, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 12, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 13, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.

Abstract: In the past few years, social robots have been introduced into public spaces, such as museums, airports, commercial malls, banks, company showrooms, hospitals, and retirement homes, to mention a few examples. In addition to classical robotic skills with physical interactions, such as navigation, grasping and manipulating objects, social robots should be able to perceive and communicate with people in the most natural way, i.e. cognitive interactions. Visual perception is a stepping step for social robots to achieve such natural social interactions.

In this course, we will provide an introduction about socially aware robotics and the recent advances in deep learning with a particular coverage on its application on the most related vision tasks, e.g. face detection, facial landmark localisation and soft bio analysis. Following that, we will introduce the well-known Robotic Operating System (ROS) and learn how to deploy simple visual perception algorithms to run on general robotic platforms. The course provides the essential ingredients to enable PhD students to demonstrate AI modules on robotic platforms, such as the ARI humanoid robot who recently joined the UniTN family.

 

Syllabus: May 9, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 10, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 11, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 12, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.
May 13, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m.

Causal Inference in Macroeconometrics

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Alessio Moneta
Email: a.moneta@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: To be decided. It should be in the period April-May. Contact the lecturer for further information
Abstract: The course aims at providing students the tools for addressing the issue of inferring causal structures from macroeconomic time series data. We will discuss the general problem of causal inference and identification in macroeconomics and we then focus on a specific set of techniques, namely causal inference by graphical causal models and identification by non-Gaussianity (based on independent component analysis). We will show how to integrate these techniques in the standard macroeconometric framework of structural vector autoregression analysis. 
Syllabus: A historical perspective of causal inference in macroeconometrics (Structural equation models, Lucas and Sims’critique, Granger causality, VAR models); Causal inference via graphical models (Constraint-based approach, Markov and faithfulness conditions, PC algorithm); Causal inference via Independent Component Analysis (fastICA and LiNGAM algorithms); Statistical identification of structural VAR models.

Challenges in Modern Web Search

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: University of Pisa (possible joint course with the Dept. of Computer Engineering, Pisa)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Franco Maria Nardini, Salvatore Trani
Email: francomaria.nardini@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1, 2
Hours: 16
Timetable: Modern Web Search (4 hours)
o The web: history, peculiarities and the importance of the search.
o Anatomy of a modern Web search engine: crawling, indexing, query processing. o Crawling: definition and application. Architecture of a modern crawler.
o Challenges in crawling the Web
● Fast Indexes for Web search (4 hours)
o Data structures for indexing Web documents
o Modern techniques for efficient text retrieval
o Data structures for efficient k-NN search and retrieval over learned representations
o Challenges in indexing the Web
o Hands On: Indexing and basic query processing on a public Web collection ● Machine learning in modern query processors (8 hours)
o Machine learning approaches for IR: Learning to Rank
o Efficiency/Effectiveness Trade-offs, Cascading Architectures
o Neural information retrieval and the role of pre-trained large language models
o Dense/Sparse retrieval
o Hands On: Learning to Rank and Deep Neural Networks for efficient Web search
Abstract: This PhD course focuses on Web search and discusses the challenges in the three main areas of Web search: i) crawling, ii) indexing, and iii) query processing. The course introduces each area by discussing the state of the art in the field and by presenting the open research questions. The emphasis of the course is on query processing, an area where machine learning provides an important contribution to advance the state of art. After an introduction of the different query processing techniques, the course i) introduces supervised techniques explicitly focused to target the ranking problem, ii) discusses several efficiency/effectiveness trade-offs in query processing and iii) analyse several related optimization techniques. The course will also provide an overview of the query processing techniques employing deep neural networks. Two hands-on sessions will cover indexing and query processing of public Web collections.
Syllabus: Course Contents in brief:
● Modern Web Search (4 hours)
o The web: history, peculiarities and the importance of the search.
o Anatomy of a modern Web search engine: crawling, indexing, query processing. o Crawling: definition and application. Architecture of a modern crawler.
o Challenges in crawling the Web
● Fast Indexes for Web search (4 hours)
o Data structures for indexing Web documents
o Modern techniques for efficient text retrieval
o Data structures for efficient k-NN search and retrieval over learned representations
o Challenges in indexing the Web
o Hands On: Indexing and basic query processing on a public Web collection ● Machine learning in modern query processors (8 hours)
o Machine learning approaches for IR: Learning to Rank
o Efficiency/Effectiveness Trade-offs, Cascading Architectures
o Neural information retrieval and the role of pre-trained large language models
o Dense/Sparse retrieval
o Hands On: Learning to Rank and Deep Neural Networks for efficient Web search

Cloud Computing & Big-Data

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Scuola Sant’Anna in Piazza dei Martiri della Liberta’ or closeby locations
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tommaso Cucinotta
Email: tommaso.cucinotta@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 30
Timetable: The course for the a.y. 2022-23 is planned to begin on mid’November 2022. Contact the lecturer for further information
Abstract: This course provides an overview of the challenges to face, and the technical solutions to embrace, when building large-scale, fault-tolerant, distributed and replicated real-time cloud services. These systems need to be capable of serving millions/billions of requests per second with industrial-grade reliability, availability and performance, and are composed of thousands of components spanning across millions of machines, worldwide. The course focuses on design, development and operations of scalable software systems, including big-data processing and analytics, as used increasingly often for nowadays intensive computations needed to train large machine-learning and artificial intelligence models, where the huge volumes of data to handle mandates the use of heavily distributed algorithms. The course covers also basic concepts on networking architectures for data-centre and cloud computing infrastructures.
Syllabus: See the topics listed in the abstract

Cloud Computing & Big-Data Lab

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: TECIP Institute of Scuola Sant’Anna in Via Moruzzi, 1
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tommaso Cucinotta
Email: tommaso.cucinotta@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 30
Timetable: The course for the a.y. 2022-2023 is planned to start on mid’April 2023. Contact the lecturer for further details
Abstract: This is a hands-on and applied course following up to the Cloud Computing & Big-Data course. Here, students will put in practice the theoretical/abstract concepts acquired in the general course on Cloud Computing & Big-Data. During the practical sessions, we’ll have a deep dive on such concepts as: machine virtualization and OS-level virtualization on Linux; virtual networking on Linux; programming abstractions for cloud and distributed computing; elasticity in practice; big-data programming frameworks; command-line interface for major public cloud services; popular open-source cloud platforms.
Syllabus: See the topics listed in the abstract

Compartmental Models for the Analysis of Contagion Dynamics: Inference and Global Sensitivity Analysis

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Viale Morgagni 59 50134 Florence, Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Michela Baccini and Giulia Cereda
Email: michela.baccini@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 12
Timetable: January 2024
Abstract: The course will provide an introduction to compartmental models for
epidemic dynamics and their use for prediction and inference.
We will illustrate frequentist calibration techniques for parameters estimation and parametric
bootstrap procedures for confidence intervals construction.
Special focus will be given to global sensitivity analysis (GSA) and Sobol’s indexes
calculation as tools to assess and characterize model uncertainties both in the phase of model
construction and in the phase of inference.
The course will include practicals on Covid19 data.
Program:
-Compartmental models: structure and assumptions
-Calibration
-Flexible modelling (spline) of time varying parameters
-Quantification of sampling variability via bootstrap
-GSA and Sobol’s Indexes
-Erlang modified SIR and SIRD
Syllabus: Na

Complexity in ecology

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco 19, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Classroom to be scheduled
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Andrea Perna
Email: andrea.perna@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: Scheduled September 2024 check www.imtlucca.it for updates
Abstract: This short module is designed to provide a basic understanding of the way how ecological systems self-assemble and function, and of the mathematical and computational tools that can be used to characterise these systems.
Syllabus: * Patterns at the individual level: scaling of ontogenetic growth, movement and metabolism.
* Patterns at the level of groups and populations: group-size distribution, collective behaviour.
* Patterns at the level of ecological communities and ecological interactions (size-abundance distribution, ecological networks).
* Ecosystem-level patterns: diversity and productivity, geographic variation.
* Ecosystems through change: multiple stable states and ecological transitions.

Computational Linguistics

Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
Location: Naples – pal. Santa Maria Porta Coeli, via Duomo 219
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Johanna Monti, Maria Pia di Buono
Email: mpdibuono@unior.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: April-May
Abstract: The training course intends to lead the student to learn about the challenges posed by digital transformations to culture with particular reference to the automatic processing of language and related technologies.
Specific knowledge is expected with reference to:
– discipline development
– methodologies for the automatic processing of language
– language resources and technologies
– programming elements
– elements of text analysis
Syllabus: 1. Natural Language Processing
2. Text annotation
3. Text analysis
4. Vector semantics and embeddings
5. Neural Networks and language models
6. Part-of-Speech annotation and named entities
7. Parsing basato sui costituenti e sulle dipendenze
8. Information Extraction
9. Word Sense and WordNet
10. Semantic Role Labelling
11. Sentiment Analysis
12. Chatbots and dialogue systems

Computing Methods for Experimental Physics and Data Analysis

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Andrea Rizzi, Alessandra Retico
Email: andrea.rizzi@unipi.it, alessandra.retico@pi.infn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 40
Timetable: November – December 2022
Abstract: The course for PhD students is part of a more extensive MSc course. The latter includes lectures dedicated to best practice in code development with a focus on scientific collaboration, python programming, principles of parallel computing. The lectures for PhD students are focused on: the design of neural networks for scientific data analysis; the development of analysis projects in the context of particle physics or medical physics.
Syllabus: By the end of the course the student will know the following tools for scientific computing and data analysis:
– tools for machine learning and artificial neural network development
– specific data analysis tools for particles physics or medical physics

Data Mining

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Dino Pedreschi
Email: dino.pedreschi@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1,2
Hours: 96
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-data-science-and-business-informatics/timetable-master-in-data-science-business-informatics/
Abstract: DATA MINING: FOUNDATIONS
The formidable advances in computing power, data acquisition, data storage and connectivity have created unprecedented amounts of data. Data mining, i.e., the science of extracting knowledge from these masses of data, has therefore been affirmed as an interdisciplinary branch of computer science. Data mining techniques have been applied to many industrial, scientific, and social problems, and are believed to have an ever deeper impact on society. The course objective is to provide an introduction to the basic concepts of data mining and the process of extracting knowledge, with insights into analytical models and the most common algorithms.
DATA MINING: ADVANCED ASPECTS AND APPLICATIONS
The second part of the course completes the knowledge of the first module with: a review of advanced techniques for the mining of new forms of data; a review of the main application areas and case studies.
Syllabus:

Deep Models for Spoken Language Translation

Institution: Università di Trento
Location: Trento, via Sommarive 9, Polo Scientifico Fabio Ferrari (Povo q), Garda room
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Marco Turchi, Marcello Federico
Email: iecs.school@unitn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: From May 16, 2022 to May 27, 2022
Abstract: Recent advances in deep learning are giving the possibility to address traditional NLP tasks in a new and remarkably unified manner. One of these tasks is spoken language translation (SLT) that has the goal of translating an audio signal in a source language into a text or audio in a target language. SLT combines the challenges of three prominent tasks: automatic speech recognition (ASR), machine translation (MT), and a text to speech (TTS). We will show how so-called sequence models can be trained to solve every single task as well as a combination of them.
This course will introduce the foundations and the recent advancements behind the three building blocks of SLT: ASR, MT, and TTS, and will describe how SLT has changed thanks to the Artificial Intelligence revolution. It will address these research areas from machine learning and computational linguistic perspectives, giving emphasis to the most prominent deep learning architectures. The course will also overview recent developments in specific SLT use cases currently investigated by researchers, such as simultaneous translation, subtitling, and speech dubbing.
Syllabus: May 16, 2022: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
May 17, 2022: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
May 18, 2022: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
May 19, 2022: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
May 20, 2022: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
May 23, 2022: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
May 24, 2022: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
May 25, 2022: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
May 26, 2022: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
May 27, 2022: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Developing in Human-Robot Interaction

Institution: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Location: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, 20123, Milano
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Antonella Marchetti; Davide Massaro; Cinzia Di Dio; Federico Manzi
Email: cinzia.didio@unicatt.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 16
Timetable: “21 maggio Antonella Marchetti (10:00-13:00)
23 maggio Cinzia Di Dio (10:00-13:00)
29 maggio Cinzia Di Dio (14:30-16:30)
4 giugno Davide Massaro (14:30-17:30)
5 giugno Federico Manzi (10:30-12:30)
7 giugno Federico Manzi (10:00-13:00)”
Abstract: Social robots represent the new frontier of interactions. We are looking at a future in which these entities will be included and integrated within many types of everyday activities, where they will be our new friends, collaborators, educators, and care assistants. In this course we will therefore offer a look at the state of the art in the development of robots as socially effective agents in psychology, highlighting their strengths, and trying to project our thinking into a future where these entities can be perceived as social partners. We will approach to the main psychological developmental steps in early infancy (e.g., gaze, imitation, action understanding), embodied cognition, social cognition (i.e., Theory of Mind) with respect to social and educational robotics. These will help to better understand the role of developmental psychology in AI and Human-Robot Interaction.
Syllabus: Antonella Marchetti – May 23 (10:00-13:00)
Module 1 – Theory of Mind:
Theoretical introduction
Developmental steps
Methodological issues
Measuring theory of mind
Developmental robotics/cybernetics and tom
Cinzia Di Dio – May 25 and 30 (10:00-13:00)
Module 2 –Embodied cognition:
Mirror Neuron System
Empathy and Social Interaction
Embodied and disembodied artificial agents
“Almost like me”: antropomorpshim and The Uncanny Valley.Federico Manzi –June 6 (14:30-17:30) and June 7 (10:00-12:00)
Module 3 –Early social cognition
Look at me: gaze following and social cognition
Follow me: action understanding
Mirror me: the sense of imitation
Experimental design with infants and toddlersDavide Massaro –June 9 (10:00-13:00)
Module 4 –Educational robotics
Socio-material and cultural approaches in human-robot interaction
The Vygotskijan ZoPed in child-robot interaction
Robot in real contexts: A lifespan perspective

Dynamics on Complex Networks

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies (details will be communicated)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Rossana Mastrandrea, PhD
Email: rossana.mastrandrea@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 10
Timetable:
– 13/02/2024 ore 11:00-13:00
– 14/02/2024 ore 9:00-12:00
– 20/02/2024 ore 11:00-13:00
– 21/02/2024 ore 9:00-12:00
Abstract: The course is highly interdisciplinary focusing both on theory and applications. It aims to carefully describe the main growth models for networks: starting from stylised facts observed in real networks different growth models with increasing complexity will be introduced. Then, the course will focus on spreading models on networks: compartmental models to study epidemics diffusion and extension to information/innovation diffusion. The possibility to generalise compartments introducing individual (or groups) behaviours will bring to Agent Based Models and application. Finally, some recent results about game theory on networks will be discussed..

Syllabus: Barrat A., Barthelemy M., and Vespignani A., “Dynamical processes on complex networks. “ Cambridge university press, 2008.

Newman MEJ., : ”Networks. An Introduction” Oxford University Press, 2010

Barabasi A., ”Network Science” University Cambridge Press, 2016 http://networksciencebook.com/

Slides, papers

Emotion detection using non-invasive biometric sensors

Institution: Università di Bari
Location: University of Bari and Microsoft Teams
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Nicole Novielli
Email: nicole.novielli@uniba.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 16
Timetable: https://collab.di.uniba.it/nicole/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/10/Emotion-recognition-using-biometrics-aa-2023-24.pdf
Abstract: Course Overview. Research on affective computing investigates emotion recognition and simulation since decades. Indeed, emotions are a fundamental component of our everyday life: they influence our cognitive skills, influence the outcome of activities requiring creativity and problem-solving skills, and contribute to the success of communication and collaborative activities.
Early recognition of negative emotions, such as stress, frustration, and anger can enable just-in-time corrective actions in many application fields, including wellbeing of knowledge workers, assistive technologies, computer-mediated communication, human-computer interaction, and so on. Thus, we envision the emergence and adoption of tools for enhancing emotion awareness during software development.
In this study, we will focus on the problem of reliable identification of the emotions using non-invasive biometrics. We will survey the state-of-the-art in biometric-based emotion recognition, with particular focus on the use of non-invasive sensors and examines to what extent they are able to detect affective expressions when used by individuals during their daily activities
A discussion is offered about the advantages and limitations of relying on self-reported, self-assessed emotions as gold standard and on the open challenges due to differences between individuals, towards the development and deployment of reliable sensor-based emotion classifiers for real use scenarios. Finally, we will discuss recent advances in applied research that leverage biometric-based emotion recognition for supporting emotion awareness in computer-supported cooperative work, with specific focus on the emotions experienced by developers engaged in collaborative software development tasks.
The course will feature both lectures and practical sessions. The latter, in particular, will show how to process the raw signal obtained by biometric sensors in order to extract features to be used for training emotion classifiers based on supervised machine learning.
Syllabus: Course Syllabus
– Background and Theoretical models of emotions
— What is emotion recognition? Fundamentals and background
— Theoretical background on affect modeling and operationalization of emotions
– Biometrics for emotion recognition
— Which data source? EEG, EDA, Heart-related metrics
— Emotion recognition based on facial expressions
— Voice analysis
– Sensor-based emotion detection in practice
— State-of-the-art devices
— Preprocessing of raw signal and feature extraction
— Training and evaluating emotion classifiers using biometrics
– Sensor-based emotion detection in computer-supported cooperative work: applications, opportunities, and open challenges

Entropy, information, statistical inference

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Miguel Ibanez
Email: miguel.ibanezberganza@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: October 2024
Abstract: DESCRIPTION: This course is a gentle introduction to statistical inference and information theory, through standard exercises and worked examples from research articles. We will often adopt the point of view of statistical physics. Far from being self-consistent, the course should rather be conceived as a panoramic presentation of selected topics, with a background motivational interest in probabilistic approaches to cognition.
Syllabus: OUTLINE: Introduction to statistical inference: the direct and inverse problems. Elements of Bayesian statistics and Bayesian model selection. Examples of hierarchical inference. Elements of information theory and some applications in systems neuroscience. Notions of probabilistic approaches to cognition.

Epistemic Logic Programming

Institution: Università dell’Aquila
Location: L’Aquila, Coppito, Edificio Turing, Aula A1.10
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Stefania Costantini
Email: stefania.costantini@univaq.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: Monday 21st March, 15:30
Monday 28th March, 15:30
Monday 4th April, 15:30
Monday 11th April, 15:30
Abstract: Epistemic Logic Programs (ELPs) are an extension of Answer Set Programming (ASP) with epistemic operators that allow for a form of meta-reasoning, that is, reasoning over multiple possible worlds, though modal operators K and M. ELPs offer the same advantages as ASP, namely a fully declarative, intuitive language for modelling and problem encoding, plus the extra espressivity provided by epistemic operators. The course will cover semantic approaches to ELPs, computational complexity, and possible practical applications.
Syllabus: 1. Recap on Answer Set Programming (ASP); 2. Motivations for Epistemic Logic Programs (ELPs); 3. Semantic foundations and Examples of use

Ethics and legal dimensions of Ai and data science… in practice

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Piazza Martiri della libertà, 33 Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Prof. Comandé
Email: g.comande@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 15
Timetable: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-NIsG79sm-x5VU90zqHa2eQgSbX_lrdE/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115109358372742284526&rtpof=true&sd=true
Abstract: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-NIsG79sm-x5VU90zqHa2eQgSbX_lrdE/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115109358372742284526&rtpof=true&sd=true
Syllabus: will be distributed to students

European Statistical System and Data Production Model

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Pisa, Polo didattico le Piagge
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Monica Pratesi – Francesco Schirripa Spagnolo
Email: francesco.schirripa@ec.unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 42
Timetable: Monday 12:15 -13:45 , Thursday 12:15-13:45

Abstract: At the end of the course the student will have knowledge on

1) the European Statistical System (ESS), the Data Production Model (DPM) and the main economic aggregates to study poverty and on the surveys on households (poverty and living conditions; EUSilc survey, Household Budget Survey, Labour Force Survey).

2) the main survey designs and their estimation strategy for planned domains of study (Regions); R codes for the application of the main direct estimators of the indicators (EURAREA and SAMPLE project libraries)

At the end of the course student will be able to deal with the ESS and to criticize the statistical quality of the published indicators of poverty and living conditions (Laeken Indicators).

Syllabus: The contents of the course are:

the European Statistical System and its Data Production Model,
Definition of poverty and living conditions (e.g. Laeken Indicators of Poverty and/or multidimensional indicators of poverty),
survey methods and estimation strategies (Horvitz -Thompson estimator, Hayek estimator),
introduction to economic official data and aggregates to study poverty and the main european surveys on households (EUSilc: European Survey on Income and Living Conditions, Household Budget Survey, Labour Force Survey). Issues on data integration and new data sources as Big data.

Evolutionary Game Theory

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Ennio Bilancini
Email: ennio.bilancini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: I can provide the tentative timetable if needed.
Please contact phd@imtlucca.it for the updated timetable.
Abstract: Evolutionary methods allow to study how behaviors and traits evolve in a population of interacting agents. The object of evolution can be a biological or cultural trait or a profile of strategies in a game. The process by which it changes can depend on fitness, imitation or optimization, possibly as the outcome of a deliberative process.
Syllabus: 1. Overview of Evolutionary Game Theory: Basic concepts, techniques and findings, from ESS strategies to evolutionary stability.
2. Deterministic evolutionary dynamics: Models of deterministic evolution, mostly based on replicator dynamics and imitation.
3. Stochastic evolutionary models: Models of stochastic evolution, mostly based on markov chains. Equilibrium selection based on stochastic stability techniques.
Teaching Method:
Frontal lecturesBibliography:
Sandholm, William H. Population games and evolutionary dynamics. MIT press, (2010).
Newton, Jonathan. “Evolutionary game theory: A renaissance.” Games 9.2 (2018): 31.
Young, H. Peyton. Individual strategy and social structure: An evolutionary theory of institutions. Princeton University Press, (2001)

Explainable Artificial Intelligence

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: SNS, Piazza dei Cavalieri, Palazzo della Carovana, Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fosca Giannotti
Email: fosca.giannotti@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 30
Timetable: Monday 14-16 and Tuesday 11-13 starting from December 5th till January 31st
Abstract: Black box AI systems for automated decision making, often based on machine learning over (big) data, map a user’s features into a class or a score without exposing the reasons why. This is problematic not only for the lack of transparency, but also for possible biases inherited by the algorithms from human prejudices and collection artifacts hidden in the training data, which may lead to unfair or wrong decisions. The future of AI lies in enabling people to collaborate with machines to solve complex problems. Like any efficient collaboration, this requires good communication, trust, clarity and understanding. Explainable AI addresses such challenges and for years different AI communities have studied such topic, leading to different definitions, evaluation protocols, motivations, and results. This (30 hours) course provides a reasoned introduction to the work of Explainable AI (XAI) to date, and surveys the literature with a focus on machine learning and symbolic AI related approaches. We motivate the needs of XAI in real-world and large-scale application, while presenting state-of-the-art techniques and best practices, as well as discussing the many open challenges. An XAI platform with collection of many of the recently proposed algorithms will be presented on specific use cases and it will be possible familiarize with some of the methods.
The course is organized as follows in two modules: i) an introductory one providing motivations, main concepts and main methods; ii) an advanced one where the students will actively participate to monographs topics with readings interleaved with interventions of international scholars working on the sector.
The period is between December 05 and February 28.
Syllabus: The schedule will depend also by the availability of the international speaker that will be involved.
Module1 (6 hours): Crush course on XAI (6 hours).
a. Motivation for XAI:
i. Why explanation and What is an explanation
ii. The taxonomy of XAI methods for Machine Learning
b. Overview post-hoc explanation methods
c. Overview of transparent by-design methods
2) Module2 (8 hours): Hands-on: on XAI methods (8 hours). + 6 open lab / Didattica Integrativa su python programming + 6 open lab Didattica Integrativa su assistenza ai progetti
a. The students will be introduced to python library of XAI-Lib methods for tabular data (4h)
b. The students will be introduced to python library of XAI methods for images data (4h)
3) Module3 (8 hours): Advanced Concepts
a. Counterfactual explanations
b. Explaining by design – argumentation and knowledge graph –
c. Explaining by design – On the integration of symbolic and sub-symbolic (student seminars)
d. Interactive XAI –
4) Student seminars and project presentation (6 hours)

Foundations of Probability and Statistical Inference

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza San Francesco, 19, classroom 1 or 2
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Irene Crimaldi
Email: irene.crimaldi@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 30
Timetable: November 2, 11, 16, 25, 30, December, 2, 7, 9, 14, 20, 22, January, 10, 13, 14, 17 and exam February, 4
Abstract: Learning Outcomes:
– By the end of this course, students will:
– have the ability to employ the fundamental tools of Probability Theory in order to solve different kinds of problems,
– have the fundamental concepts of Statistical Inference in order to perform various kinds of
statistical analysis,
– appreciate the importance of mathematical formalization in solving probabilistic problems and in performing statistical analysis,
– be able to independently read mathematical and statistical literature of various types and be life-long learners who are able to independently expand their probabilistic and statistical expertise when needed.
Abstract:
This course covers the fundamental concepts of probability theory and statistical inference. Some proofs are sketched or omitted in order to have more time for examples, applications and exercises.
Syllabus: Lecture Contents: This course deals with the following topics:
– probability space, random variable, expectation, variance, cumulative distribution function,
discrete and absolutely continuous distributions,
– random vector, joint and marginal distributions, joint cumulative distribution function, covariance,
– conditional probability, independent events, independent random variables, conditional
probability density function, order statistics,
– multivariate Gaussian distribution, copula functions,
– probability-generating function, Fourier transform/characteristic function,
– types of convergence and some related important results,
– Mathematical Statistics (point estimation, interval estimation, hypothesis testing, linear regression, introduction to Bayesian statistics).

Fundamentals of computer science for the data scientist

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Diaprtimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni, Viale Morgagni 59 Firenze
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Andrea Marino, Donatella Merlini, Cecilia Verri
Email: andrea.marino@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 24
Timetable: to be defined
Abstract: Programming in Python: fundamental structures, python modules,
functions, recursion, strings, lists, dictionaries, analysis of algorithms,
search, and sorting. Algorithmic techniques: greedy, divide et impera, dynamic programming. Graphs and algorithms on graphs. Relational algebra and normalization.
Preprocessing of relational data for data mining applications using the SQL language.
Syllabus:

Game Theory

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Ennio Bilancini
Email: ennio.bilancini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: I can give the tentative one if needed.
Please contact phd@imtlucca.it for the updated timetable.
Abstract: The course provides a detailed discussion of state of the art in the modeling of interactive decisionmaking as games. Special attention will be given to the prediction of outcomes in strategic situations. For this purpose, prominent solution concepts of games are reviewed and discussed, together with their main refinements based on rationality and information requirements.

Syllabus: Game concepts covered: normal form game, extensive form game, strategy, mixed strategy, Dominance and iterative dominance, rationalizability, Nash equilibrium, subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, trembling hand perfect Nash equilibrium, weak perfect Bayes-Nash equilibrium, sequential equilibrium, perfect Bayes-Nash equilibrium, out-of-equilibrium beliefs refinements. The discussion of all theoretical concepts will be accompanied by representative applications from biological, economic, information and social sciences.

Teaching Method:
Frontal lectures

Bibliography:
Mas-Colell A, Whinston MD, Green JR. Microeconomic theory. New York: Oxford university press (chapters 7,8,9)

Geospatial Analytics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Largo Bruno Pontecorvo, 3, 56127 Pisa. Rooms E and C1
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Luca Pappalardo, Mirco Nanni
Email: mirco.nanni@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 40
Timetable: http://didawiki.di.unipi.it/doku.php/geospatialanalytics/gsa/start
Abstract: The analysis of geographic information, such as those describing human movements, is crucial due to its impact on several aspects of our society, such as disease spreading (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), urban planning, well-being, pollution, and more. This course will teach the fundamental concepts and techniques underlying the analysis of geographic and mobility data, presenting data sources (e.g., mobile phone records, GPS traces, geotagged social media posts), data preprocessing techniques, statistical patterns, predicting and generative algorithms, and real-world applications (e.g., diffusion of epidemics, socio-demographics, link prediction in social networks). The course will also provide a practical perspective through the use of advanced geoanalytics Python libraries.

Syllabus: Module 1: Spatial and Mobility Data

Fundamentals of Geographical Information Systems
Geographic coordinates systems
Vector data model
Trajectories
Spatial Tessellations
Flows
Practice: Python packages for geospatial analysis (Shapely, GeoPandas, folium, scikit-mobility)
Digital spatial and mobility data
Mobile Phone Data
GPS data
Social media data
Other data (POIs, Road Networks, etc.)
Practice: reading and exploring spatial and mobility datasets in Python
Preprocessing mobility data
filtering compression
stop detection
trajectory segmentation
trajectory similarity and clustering
Practice: data preprocessing with scikit-mobility

Module 2: Mobility Patterns and Laws

individual mobility laws/patterns
collective mobility laws/patterns
Practice: analyze mobility data with Python

Module 3: Predictive and Generative Models

Prediction
Next-location prediction
Crowd flow prediction
Spatial interpolation
Generation
Trajectory generation
Flow generation
Practice: mobility prediction and generation in Python

Module 4: Applications

Epidemic spreading (COVID-19)
Urban segregation models
Routing and navigation apps
Traffic simulation with SUMO

Human in the loop: oversight of AI systemjs

Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
Location: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
Type: Cycle of Seminars
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Montinaro – Monti
Email: jmonti@unior.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable:
– 27/03/2024, 15:00-18:00
– 10/04/2024, 10:30-13:30
– 17/04/2024, 10:30-13:30
– 29/04/2024, 14:30-17:30
Abstract: The cycle of seminars will involve the participation of scholars and experts from a variety of Institutions and with different scientific backgrounds. The cycle is aimed at
promoting contamination, discussion and debate on the topics of the syllabus.
Syllabus: a) The principle of human oversight under the EU soft law and the Artificial Intelligence Act. The accountability of providers and users of AI systems; b) Creating NLP models’ more equitable, just, and trustworthy fairness by incorporating human input and oversight; c) Innovative methodologies for individuals and AI to make good administrative decisions; d) Data analytics and decision-making

Human Language Technologies

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Lucia Passaro
Email: lucia.passaro@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 72
Timetable: TBA
Abstract: The course explores Natural Language Processing (NLP) principles, models, and contemporary techniques for both analyzing and generating natural language. The emphasis is on statistical machine-learning methods, with a particular focus on Deep Learning.
Throughout the course, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of fundamental NLP techniques, algorithms, and current models. They will also explore the architecture of typical text-based applications and the libraries used for their development, as well as the design, implementation, and assessment of applications that leverage text analysis, comprehension, and transformation.
The course features guest seminars by researchers and industry professionals active in the Natural Language Processing field.

Syllabus: The course presents principles, models, and state-of-the-art techniques for the analysis and generation of natural language, focusing mainly on statistical machine-learning approaches and Deep Learning in particular. Students will learn how to apply these techniques in a wide range of applications using modern programming libraries.

Foundations of Natural Language Processing
Introduction to NLP, Historical developments, Key applications
Statistical Methods in NLP: Language Models, Hidden Markov Model, Viterbi Algorithm, Generative vs. Discriminative Models
Linguistic Essentials: Words, Lemmas, Morphology, Parts of Speech (PoS) Tagging, Phrases and Sentence Structure, Named Entity Recognition (NER)
Parsing Techniques: Constituency Parsing, Dependency Parsing

NLP Methods and Techniques
Annotation Pipelines, Linguistic Annotation, Semantic Annotation, Text Annotation Tools and Frameworks
Lexical Semantics: Collocations and multi-word expressions, Corpora and Corpus Linguistics, Thesauri and Gazetteers
Distributional Semantics: Word Embeddings, Character Embeddings, Semantic Similarity
Deep Learning for Natural Language

Applications and Case Studies
Information Extraction: Entity Recognition, Entity Linking
Text Classification and Summarization: Classification Techniques, Summarization Models
Advanced NLP Applications: Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis, Question Answering, Dialogic Interfaces (Chatbots), Machine Translation
The syllabus is subject to change based on the pace of the class and emerging trends in Human Language Technologies.

Human-Centered AI (HCAI): an innovative vision for designing intelligent systems

Institution: Università di Bari
Location: Bari, Via Orabona 4, Department of Computer Science
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Rosa Lanzilotti
Email: rosa.lanzilotti@uniba.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 16
Timetable: April-May
Abstract: With advances in artificial intelligence new types of tools and systems are created. Some people speak of an AI revolution, in scale similar to the industrial revolution that fundamentally changed tools, technologies, and society. So far, many AI-based applications and services are not focusing on humans and their needs and desires, nor their concerns and worries, i.e. they are not human-centered. Such systems do not adequately support end users because of their poor explainability, lack of control, lack of reliability and trust. These factors, among others, show that designers and developers have to become aware of the potential ethical and practical issues of this type of system as well as to acquire proper knowledge, methodologies and techniques to create effective intelligent systems that may better satisfy their users.
In this respect, a new perspective is emerging that aims at reconsidering the centrality of human beings while reaping the benefits of AI systems to augment rather than replace professional skills: Human-centred AI (HCAI). Its goal is to promote an innovative vision of intelligent systems that are equipped with powerful algorithms but are useful and usable for people, that support them to achieve their goals, and that balance system autonomy and control by people.
The course aims to guide the student from the basics of HCAI, exploring principles, challenges and methods to design and evaluate AI-based systems. Then the course will focus on emerging aspects of HCI for AI, for example, the Explainability for AI systems, general principles for designing Human-AI Interaction. Students will be stimulated to include some topics related to their research activities.
Syllabus: Introduction to Human-AI Interaction
User-Centered Design, Usability and User eXperience
Properties of Interactive Human-Centered AI
Bias & explanations

Inferential Statistics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Department of Economics and Management University of Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: No
Lecturers: Stefano Marchetti
Email: stefano.marchetti@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: 25 January 11.00-13.00
27 January 10.00-12.00 + 14.00-16.00
30 January 14.00-16.00
31 January 14.00-16.00
1 February 10.00-12.00 + 14.00-16.00
2 February 14.00-16.00
3 February 10.00-12.00 + 14.00-16.00
Abstract: Provide background of fundamental statistical theory, basic ideas of probability, modelling and tools of general statistical thinking
Syllabus: The short course on Statistical Inference aims to give students a background of fundamental statistical theory, providing basic ideas of probability, modeling and tools of general statistical thinking under the parametric, non-parametric and Bayesian approaches. The course also gives a flavor on the finite population approach. Practical example will be illustrated using the R language.
The course will focus on:
• Probability theory (random variables, distribution functions, density and mass functions)
• Properties of a random sample
• Point estimation (statistical properties of estimators) and interval estimation
• Hypothesis testing
• Test association between variables (t-test, ANOVA, test of independence, test for linear correlation)
• Supervised models: bias-variance trade off, overfitting

Information Retrieval

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Officine Garibaldi, via Gioderti 39, Pisa
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Paolo Ferragina
Email: paolo.ferragina@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 42
Timetable: TBA
Abstract: The module provides the description of a search engine structure and of Text Mining tools, by analyzing their characteristics and limits with respect to the computational cost, the precision/recall/F1 parameters, and the expressivity of the supported queries. The module is also based on hands-on activities that will present well-known open-source Python tools for the crawling and analysis of web pages, the semantic annotation of texts (TagMe), and the indexing of text data collections (ElasticSearch).
Syllabus:

Intelligent Systems for Pattern Recognition

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Davide Bacciu
Email: davide.bacciu@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 72
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-computer-science/timetable-master-computer-science/
Abstract: The course introduces students to the analysis and design of advanced machine learning models for modern pattern recognition problems and discusses how to realize advanced applications exploiting computational intelligence techniques.
The course is articulated in four parts. The first part introduces basic concepts and algorithms concerning pattern recognition, in particular as pertains sequence and image analysis. The next two parts introduce advanced models from two major learning paradigms, that are (deep) neural networks and generative models, and their use in pattern recognition applications. The last part will go into the details of the realization of selected recent applications of AI models. Presentation of the theoretical models and associated algorithms will be complemented by introductory classes on the most popular software libraries used to implement them.
The course hosts guest seminars by national and international researchers working on the field as well as by companies that are engaged in the development of advanced applications using machine learning models.
Topics covered – Bayesian learning, graphical models, deep learning models and paradigms, deep learning for machine vision and signal processing, advanced neural network models (recurrent, recursive, etc.), (deep) reinforcement learning, signal processing and time-series analysis, image processing, filters and visual feature detectors, pattern recognition applications (machine vision, bio-informatics, robotics, medical imaging, etc), introduction to machine learning and deep learning libraries.
Syllabus:

Introduction to causal inference

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Firenze, Viale Morgagni 59, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fabrizia Mealli, Alessandra Mattei
Email: fabrizia.mealli@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: june 2022
Abstract: The potential outcome approach. The assignment mechanism. Design and
analysis of randomized experiments. Design and analysis of observational studies with
regular assignment mechanisms. Causal inference in irregular designs: Causal studies with
intermediate variables, Regression discontinuity designs, Causal studies where units are
clustered or organized in networks. Miscellanea: Machine Learning and Causal inference;
Difference-in-differences; synthetic controls; causal inference in time series setting.
Syllabus: na

Introduction to Machine Learning

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: Scuola Normale, piazza dei Cavalieri Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fosca Giannotti and Roberto Pellungrini
Email: Fosca.giannotti@sns.it roberto.pellungrini@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 40
Timetable: The period is between February 20 and May 16 2 lesson a week
Abstract: The formidable advances in computing power, data acquisition, data storage, and connectivity have created unprecedented amounts of data. Data mining and Machine Learning, i.e., the science of extracting knowledge from these masses of data, has therefore been affirmed as an interdisciplinary branch of computer science. The course will introduce the foundations of learning and making predictions from data. A special focus is dedicated to modern Deep Neural Network architectures. The aim of the course is to provide students with basic knowledge of both theoretical foundations and practical aspects of data mining and machine learning with attention to the overall process of extracting knowledge, and its engineering issues.
Syllabus: 1) Introduction: the Knowledge Discovery process. (4 hours)
• KDD Process: all steps in a nutshell.
• Data understanding and Data exploration
2) Unsupervised learning methods (8 hours)
• Clustering: basic concepts and major algorithms for centroid, density based hierarchical clustering
• Pattern mining and Association Rules: a-priori pattern mining
• Practicals: hands-on on simple case studies using python libraries (2h)
3) Supervised Learning: methods and practicals case study on simple data sets iris and titanic (24 hours)
• Classification: introduction, performance evaluation. A first simple classifier: Decision tree (4)
• Practicals: hands-on on simple case studies using python libraries (2h)
• Overview of advanced methods: Random Forest, Support Vector Machine(2)
• Practicals: hands-on on simple case studies using python libraries (2h)
• Introduction to Neural Networks and Project description and project assignment (2)
• Deep Learning architecture and exemplar use cases: Convolutional and Recurrent Neural Networks, (2)
• Practicals: hands-on on simple case studies using python libraries (2h)
• Deep Learning architecture and exemplar use cases: Generative adversarial networks, Transformers, and Graph Neural Networks (6)
• Practicals: hands-on on simple case studies using python libraries (2h)
4) Design principles and Trustworthy issues on AI systems based on Data Mining and Machine Learning: (4 hours)
• Bias discovery and explainability
• Project seminar and discussion
The course will provide also an open lab to support students for project execution Didattica Integrativa (12 hours)
Reference bibliography –
1) “Introduction to Data Mining”, 2nd Edition by Tan, Steinbach, Karpatne, Kuma
2) Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, Aaron Courville, Deep Learning. MIT Press, 2016. https://www.deeplearningbook.org/
1) Python a machine Learning, Bellini & Guidi Mc Graw Hill
2) Intelligent Data Analysis: An Introduction, Berthold &Hand, Springe

Introduction to Network Science

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, p.zza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca (Italy)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tiziano Squartini
Email: tiziano.squartini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: The timetable may be sbject to change: please write to phd@imtlucca.it and ask to have the calendar shared.
Abstract: The course offers a panoramic view of network science. Following its historical development, we will review the main concepts and methods of this discipline. Moving from the basic stylized facts characterizing real-world networks we will describe the most popular techniques to extract information from them.
Syllabus: Introduction to graph theory. Empirical properties of complex networks (scale invariance of the degree, small-world phenomenon, modularity). Network representations (monopartite, bipartite and multilayer; binary and weighted; undirected and directed networks; unsigned and signed networks; hypergraphs; simplicial complexes). Centrality. Ranking and reputation algorithms. Mesoscale structures (communities, core-periphery and bow-tie structures). A primer on dynamical models: Watts-Strogatz, Barabasi-Albert. A primer on static models: Erdos-Renyi model, Chung-Lu model and fitness model.

Introduction to SAT and SMT

Institution: Università di Trento
Location: Trento, via Sommarive 9, Polo Scientifico Fabio Ferrari (Povo q), Garda room
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Roberto Sebastiani
Email: iecs.school@unitn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: From January 17, 2022 to January 28, 2022
Abstract: Propositional Satisfiability (SAT) is the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a Boolean formula (and to a wider extent, to perform Boolean reasoning on possibly-huge expressions.) The ability of efficiently reasoning with Boolean values and operators is a core feature of many applications in various fields of Artificial Intelligence, Formal Verification and Digital Electronics, including, e.g., Automated Reasoning and Planning, Formal verification of Hardware and Software devices, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) is the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a (typically quantifier-free) first-order formula with respect to some decidable first-order theory (e.g., those of linear arithmetic, Arrays, and Bit-Vectors) and of their combination. SMT is being recognized as increasingly important due to its applications in many domains in different communities. In the last decade we have witnessed a striking interest in SMT, with a boost in the performances of SMT solvers, which combine the power of SAT solvers with the expressivity of decision procedures for various theories of interest. This course aims at providing an overview of the main problems, techniques, functionalities and applications of SAT and SMT. We believe that this course will be of interest for students and researchers in many domains, ranging from Formal Verification, Digital Electronics, and various fields of Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Automated Reasoning, Planning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning).
Syllabus: January 17, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 18, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 19, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 20, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 21, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 24, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 25, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 26, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 27, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
January 28, 22: 9 a.m.-11 a.m.

Introduction to sustanability and ecological economics

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Schooll for Advanced Studies, Piazza S. Francesco 19, Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Angelo Facchini
Email: angelo.facchini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: 25/05/2023 – 22/06/2023
Abstract: This course aims to provide students with fundamental concepts of sustainability science and the economics view of the environment.
Upon completion, participants will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Have a basic understanding of the principles of environmental and ecological economics, with a clear overview on the fundamental principles for the understanding of human-economy- environment interaction
2. Have a basic understanding of environmental problems and environmental policies.
3. Have a first knowledge of the current research topics, directions, and funding opportunities.
Participants will also rely on the main topics regarding the European Green Deal and the Ecological transition.
Syllabus: #Course description
What is sustainability? Which is the link between the economy and the Environment? Which are the main challenges and the main research topics? Which are the main factors that influence a transition to sustainability?
Providing the first insights to answer the above questions is the aim of this course. Lectures are devoted to the fundamental topics in the field of sustainability science and environmental economics. This last is used as a ground to explain the main differences and similarities between ecological and environmental economics, that will be highlighted and discussed with practical examples.
The course is divided into the following modules:
1. Introduction to sustainability science (lectures 1-2)
2. Basic principles of environmental and resource economics (lectures 3-7)
3. Methods and applications (lectures 8-9)
4. Advanced and research topics (lecture 10)
Within each module, specific case studies (e.g. related to climate policies, pollution, resource use) will be discussed and used to ease the comprehension of the course arguments. The lectures aim at encouraging the participants to develop skills while reinforcing the concepts learned during the lessons.
Recent scientific papers will also be discussed to make the students work on cutting-edge research topics, stimulating their attention. Participants will also be encouraged to formulate their research questions and to cooperate on new research papers.
The course also encourages to develop a critical understanding of the iterative research process leading from fundamental concepts to cutting-edge research topics, policies, and funding opportunities within the recent European “Green Deal”.
Lecture 1 Environment and ethics
Lecture 2 Basic principles of sustainability
Lecture 3 The economic approach to the Environment
Lecture 4 Valuing the Environment 1
Lecture 5 Valuing the Environment 2
Lecture 6 The economic control of the environment
Lecture 7 Basic concepts of resource management
Lecture 8 Energy: The transition from depletable to renewable resources
Lecture 9 Principles of circular economy
Lecture 10 Research topics: urban sustainability, renewable energy sources, Big data
#Bibliography:
I. Musu, Introduzione all’economia dell’ambiente. Il Mulino, 2020.
R. Perman, Y. Ma, J. McGilvray, M. Common. Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, Pearson, 2003.
T. Tietenberg, L. Lewis. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Pearson Education, 2012.
R.K Turner, D. Pearce, I. Bateman, Environmental Economics: an elementary introduction, John Hopkins Univ. Press, 1994.#Prerequisites:
No prerequisites. The course is understandable by a broad audience. Technical and economic aspects will be treated gently.

Kernel Smoothing

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Firenze, Viale Morgagni 59, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Agnese Panzera
Email: agnese.panzera@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: May-June 2022
Abstract: Kernel smoothing refers to a general class of techniques for non-parametric
estimation of functions. The course offers an overview of the applications of kernel
smoothing idea to density estimation and regression problems, along with some related
issues.
Syllabus: na

Language Technology Laboratory

Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
Location: Naples, pal Santa Maria in Porta Coeli
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Maria Pia Di Buono, Johanna Monti
Email: mpdibuono@unior.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: n.a.
Abstract: The workshop aims to provide applied knowledge on the main tools for automatic natural language processing.
Syllabus: Theoretical-practical exercises

Learning and Indexing Visual Representations

Institution: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Location: Pisa, via G. Moruzzi, 1
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: No
Lecturers: Giuseppe Amato, Fabrizio Falchi, Claudio Gennaro
Email: fabrizio.falchi@cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: To be defined
Abstract: The course aims at introducing the problems and offering instruments that allow analyzing and extracting information from visual data, to search them on a large scale.
Syllabus: The course discusses: deep learning as representation learning methods; indexing of representations (features) for Multimedia Information Retrieval on a large scale.

Legal issues on AI-applications for vulnerable groups

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Aula 10 sede Centrale Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Denise Amram
Email: Denise Amram
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: 12.1.2024 9.30-13.30; 14.30-16.30 aula 10 Sede Centrale SSSA
19.1.2024 9.30-13.30; 14.30-16.30 aula 10 Sede Centrale SSSA
Abstract: The Course focuses on the general legal framework and tailored safeguards applicable to data analysis related to vulnerable individuals/groups and their impact on policy and law-making.
Case studies will be presented in particular on children, patients, victims of disasters, consumers.
Syllabus: 1. Introduction. The impact of data science on regulation, standardisation and compliance activities for law and policy making purposes.
2. Protocols for innovators to develop AI-based solutions to process general and sensitive data.
3. Patients as end-users of AI-based applications
4. Children as end-users and consumers of AI-based applications

Machine Learning

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa, Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Alessio Micheli
Email: alessio.micheli@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 72
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/laurea-magistrale-in-informatica/orario-magistrale-informatica/
Abstract: The course introduces the machine learning principles and models, including basic theory of learning. The course provides the Machine Learning basis for both the aims of building new adaptive Intelligent Systems and powerful predictive models for Intelligent Data Analysis.
The focus is on the critical analysis of the characteristics for the design and use of the algorithms for learning functions from examples and for the rigorous experimental evaluation.
The student who successfully completes the course will be able to demonstrate a solid knowledge of the main models and algorithms for learning functions from data, with a focus on Neural Networks and related methods (including Deep Learning approches and Support Vector Machines). The student will be aware of the general conceptual framework of modern machine learning; of the basic principles of computational learning processes; of rigorous validation techniques; of the critical characteristics for the use of the learning models to design intelligent/adaptive systems and predictive models for data analysis.
Syllabus: – Computational learning tasks for predictions, learning as function approximation, generalization concept.
– Basic concepts and models: Continuos and discrete hypothesis space, inductive bias, linear and nearest neighbor models (learning algorithms and properties), regularization.
– Neural Networks (NN) architectures and learning algorithms: Perceptron. Multi-layers feedforward models. Deep models. Randomized NN. Recurrent NN. Regularization.
– Validation: model selection and model assessment.
– Principles of learning processes: Elements of Statistical Learning Theory. Bias/variance analysis.
– Support Vector Machines and Kernels-based models.
– Probabilistic graphical/Bayesian models.
– Unsupervised learning: vector quantization, self-organizing map (SOM).
– Introduction to benchmarks and applications.
– Introduction to advanced approaches (structured domains).
– Applicative project: implementation and use of ML/NN models with emphasis to the rigorous application of validation techniques.

Markov processes

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza San Francesco, classroom 1 or 2
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Irene Crimaldi
Email: irene.crimaldi@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Timetable: February, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25
Abstract: Learning Outcomes:
– By the end of this course, students will:
– be familiar with Markov processes with discrete state space and discrete or continuous time,
– be able to employ the fundamental tools of Markov processes theory in order to solve different kinds of problems,
– appreciate the importance of mathematical formalization in solving probabilistic problems,
– be able to independently read mathematical and statistical literature on Markov processes.
Abstract:
This course covers the fundamental results regarding Markov processes with discrete state space and discrete or continuous time. Some proofs are sketched or omitted in order to have more time for examples, applications and exercises.
Syllabus: This course deals with the following topics:
– Markov chains (definitions and basic properties, classification of
– states, invariant measure, stationary distribution, ergodic limit theorem, cyclic classes, passage problems);
– Markov processes with discrete state space and continuous time (definitions, Markov’s property, transition intensities, generator, forward Kolmogorov equations, stationary probability distribution);
– Birth-Death processes and queues.

Mathematical Models for Quantitative Finance: Market Microstructure, Networks, and Systemic Risk

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: Pisa, piazza dei Cavalieri 7
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fabrizio Lillo
Email: fabrizio.lillo@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 40
Timetable: https://www.sns.it/en/corsoinsegnamento/mathematical-models-quantitative-finance-market-microstructure-networks-and
Abstract: The first goal of the course is to introduce the fundamental notions of market microstructure, network modeling, and financial systemic risk. The second goal is to present some recent contributions of the scientific literature and open problems. The third goal is to provide the student with the tool for the empirical and computational analysis of high frequency data and data relevant for systemic risk.
Syllabus: Market Microstructure
Electronic markets and limit order book. High frequency data.
Statistical and structural models (Roll and its generalizations). Asymmetric information models (Glosten-Milgrom, Kyle). Information share. Inventory management models. Market making. Statistical limit order book models.
Trading models: Market impact and order flow. Trading costs. Optimal execution. High Frequency Trading.
High Frequency Econometrics: Realized volatility and covariance, Microstructure noise. Point processes in finance (Hawkes processes and ACD models).
Financial networks
Basic elements of graph theory. Random walks on graphs. Centrality measures. Scale free networks and small world graphs. Models of random graphs: Erdos Renyi graphs, Exponential random graphs, Stochastic block model, configuration model. Maximum entropy principle and networks. Networks from time series.Systemic risk
Mechanisms for systemic risk and models: Bank runs, leverage cycles, Interbank networks, Fire sales spillovers.
Econometric approaches to systemic risk: CoVar, MES,SRISK, Granger causality networks.
High frequency systemic risk: flash crashes, liquidity crises, systemic cojumps.

Mathematics for Complex Systems

Institution: Università di Bologna
Location: Bologna, Dipartimento di Matematica, Piazza Porta San Donato 5
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Daniele Tantari
Email: a.barbieri@unibo.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 48
Timetable: https://www.unibo.it/it/didattica/insegnamenti/insegnamento/2021/469920
Abstract: At the end of the course the student : – has in-depth knowledge of the possible applications of complex system’s theory to the study of statistical inference and machine learning problems; – is able to introduce a stochastic generative model, set up an inference procedure to extract information from data and discuss process complexity and theoretical limits of the inference/learning performance from the perspective of the theory of complex systems and phase transitions
Syllabus: Elements of Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics;
Ising Models: thermodynamic states and phase transitions;
Systems with frustration and Gauge Theory;
Random Graphs: degree distribution, components and metrics; Configuration Model; Erdos-Renyi; Maximum Entropy Random graphs; Macroscopic Structures and Stochastic Block Model;
Factor graphs: locally treelike graphs, Bethe Free energy;
Belief Propagation, Message-Passing Algorithm, TAP equations;
Ising Spins: Belief Propagation vs Glauber Dynamics;
Belief Propagation and community detection: detectability transitions;
Coding, Transmission, Noisy Channels and Decoding;
Image Restoration;
Perceptron Learning and Neural Networks: critical capacity and phase transition;

MATLAB for Data Science

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco 18, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Classroom to be defined
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Giorgio Gnecco
Email: giorgio.gnecco@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: Lectures currently scheduled in the following days: 28/9/2022 (4pm-6pm), 5/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 12/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 17/10/2022 (2pm-4pm), 20/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 24/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 25/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 26/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 27/10/2022 (11am-1pm), 28/10/2022 (11am-1pm)
Abstract: The course provides MATLAB implementations of several machine learning techniques.
Syllabus: Description of MATLAB code for:
– principal component analysis;
– spectral clustering;
– linear and polynomial regression;
– bias/variance trade-off;
– resampling methods;
– bounding box identification via the quasi-Monte Carlo method;
– logistic regression;
– batch gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent for training perceptrons/multilayer neural networks;
– perceptrons/multilayer neural networks applied to the XOR problem;
– digit recognition via neural networks;
– backpropagation with momentum;
– backpropagation applied to the minimization of the cross-entropy function;
– comparison of backpropagation applied to the minimization of the cross-entropy function and of the sum of squares error function;
– spam recognition via support vector machines;
– symmetry and antisymmetry in support vector machine training problems;
– trade-off between number of examples and precision of supervision in ordinary least squares, weighted least squares, and fixed effects panel data models;
– learning with boundary conditions;
– learning with mixed hard/soft constraints;
– LQG online learning;
– RBF interpolation;
– surrogate optimization for optimal material design;
– curve identification in the presence of curve intersections;
– matrix completion.
Depending on the students’ background, additional slides will be presented/provided to them, illustrating a summary of the theory behind some of the techniques considered in the course.

Maximum-Entropy Models of Complex Systems II

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, p.zza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca (Italy)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tiziano Squartini
Email: tiziano.squartini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: The timetable may be subject to change: please write to phd@imtlucca.it and ask to have the calendar shared.
Abstract: The course heavily focuses on deeper theoretical aspects of maximum-entropy models and their consequences. Particular emphasis will be put on maximum-entropy models to study weighted complex networks.
Syllabus: How to build statistical models in a principled way: a review of maximum-entropy models. From null models to true models: weighted reciprocal configuration models and block-structured models. Bipartite formalism for Exponential Random Graph models. Continuous formalism for Exponential Random Graph models. Conditional framework for discrete and continuous Exponential Random Graph models. Information criteria for model selection (Likelihood Ratio Test, Akaike Information Criterion, Bayesian Information Criterion, Minimum Description Length). Applications to economic and financial systems. The course will include an overview of ongoing research carried out by Networks@IMT, thereby offering directions for possible PhD projects in this area.

Methods and tools for longitudinal data analysis

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni, Viale Morgagni 59 Firenze
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Maria Francesca Marino
Email: mariafrancesca.marino@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 12
Timetable: 10-11-12 january 2024
Abstract: The course aims at introducing students to methods and models for the analysis of longitudinal data. These are characterized by a complex dependence structure that, if not properly taken into consideration in the analysis, may lead to biased inferential conclusions. Particular emphasis will be placed on the description of the main features of longitudinal data, as well as on the methodological aspects behind the main modeling alternatives available in the literature. The treatment of missing data in longitudinal data modeling will be also discussed.
Syllabus:

Microeconometrics

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Laura Magazzini
Email: laura.magazzini@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 21
Timetable: To be decided. It will be held in the period February-March. Contact the lecturer for further details and updates
Abstract: The course aims at providing students the tools for dealing with microeconomic analysis of the behavior of individuals or firms. Regression methods for the study of static and dynamic panel data models and estimation of limited dependent variable models will be considered, including discrete choice models, censored and truncated regressions, and sample selection. Besides the theoretical background, students will be exposed to the discussion and the analysis of empirical applications. (the course requires basic knowledge of OLS and IV regression methods and maximum likelihood estimation).
Syllabus: Linear panel data models: static and dynamic framework; Non linear modeling of cross-sectional data: binary choice models, count data model, truncation and censoring.

Multimodal Machine Learning

Institution: Università di Trento
Location: online
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Wei Wang, Cigdem Beyan
Email: iecs.school@unitn.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: From February 16, 2022 to March 17, 2022
Abstract: Multimodal Machine Learning is a multi-disciplinary research field. It is based on integrating and modeling multiple modalities, e.g., acoustics and vision. This course includes fundamental concepts related to multimodal learning such as multimodal alignment, multimodal fusion, joint learning, temporal learning, multimodal representation learning. We will mainly cover the recent state-of-the-art papers, which propose effective computational algorithms for diverse application spectrum.
The first part mainly focuses on human face analysis from multimedia content, such as images and videos, together with the related machine learning methods. The tasks include both the traditional ones, (e.g., face detection & recognition, age & gender estimation) and some recent ones, (e.g., face synthesis & expression manipulation). In the meanwhile, the related deep learning approaches will also be introduced, such as the convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, and some specific generative models.
The second part of this course particularly focus on human behavior understanding that includes verbal and nonverbal behavior analysis and multimodal affect recognition. In these contexts, several datasets, sensing approaches, computational methodologies allowing to detecting and understanding several social and psychological phenomena will be covered. We will also point out existing limitations and outline possible future directions.
The course evaluation will be based on a small project given to a group of students (i.e., teamwork).
Syllabus: February 16, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
February 17, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
February 23, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
February 24, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 2, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 3, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 9, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 10, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 16, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.
March 17, 2022: 1.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.

Network Reconstruction

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, p.zza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca (Italy)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Tiziano Squartini
Email: tiziano.squartini@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: The timetable may be subject to change: please write to phd@imtlucca.it and ask to have the calendar shared.
Abstract: The course focuses on the topic of network reconstruction. Early attempts to infer missing information about networks will be reviewed, putting particular emphasis on the use of such techniques to reconstruct financial networks.
Syllabus: Literature review about network reconstruction. Early attempts to infer a network structure from partial information (MaxEnt approach; the copula approach; MECAPM; Iterative Proportional Fitting algorithm; Minimum Density algorithm). Monopartite and bipartite financial networks reconstruction via the fitness model. Systemic risk estimation. How to build statistical models in a principled way: maximum-entropy models. Econometric VS maximum-entropy models: a comparison.

Neural Networks and Deep Learning: Advanced Topics

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Grey Room – TeCIP Institute, Via Moruzzi 1, Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Buttazzo
Email: Giorgio.Buttazzo@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 30
Timetable: http://retis.santannapisa.it/~giorgio/courses/neural/schedule-NNDL.pdf
Abstract: This course presents recent techniques proposed to improve previous models and overcome their limitations. Topics include generative adversarial networks, model compression, semi-supervised learning, contrastive learning, transformers, neural tracking, defense against adversarial attacks.
Syllabus: See the topics listed in the abstract

Neural Networks and Deep Learning: implementation issues

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Grey Room – TeCIP Institute, Via Moruzzi 1, Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Buttazzo, Alessandro Biondi
Email: giorgio.buttazzo@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 30
Timetable: http://retis.santannapisa.it/~giorgio/courses/neural/schedule-NNDL.pdf
Abstract: The objective of the course is to provide practical and implementation issues useful to deploy neural networks on a variety of embedded platforms using different languages and development environments. Preferably for students with a background in computer science or engineering.
Syllabus: See the topics listed in the abstract

Neural Networks and Deep Learning: theoretical foundations

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Grey Room – TeCIP Institute, Via Moruzzi 1, Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Buttazzo
Email: Giorgio.Buttazzo@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 35
Timetable: http://retis.santannapisa.it/~giorgio/courses/neural/schedule-NNDL.pdf
Abstract: The objective of the course is to provide basic concepts and methodologies on the main existing neural models, explaining how to use them for pattern recognition, image classification, signal prediction, data analysis, system identification, and adaptive control.
Syllabus: See the topics listed in the abstract

Non-Classical Knowledge Representation and Resoning

Institution: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Location: CNR-ISTI, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 56127 Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Umberto Straccia, Giovanni Casini
Email: umberto.straccia@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 12
Abstract: The course is a rigorous introduction to non-classical methods and tools for Representing and Reasoning, such as Fuzzy and Probabilistic reasoning, Defeasible and Counterfactual reasoning, Belief Change and Paraconsistent reasoning. A particular attention is devoted to those methods and tools that apply to the three main streams of Semantic Web languages: namely, triple languages RDF & RDFS, Conceptual languages OWL, OWL 2 and their Profiles (OWL EL, OWL QL and OWL RL), and rule-based languages such as SWRL and RIF.
Syllabus: Lecture 1: Classical Logics and Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KRR)
Lecture 2: Introduction to Semantic Web Languages (SWLs)
Lecture 3: Uncertainty and Fuzzyness in SWLs 1
Lecture 3: Uncertainty and Fuzzyness in SWLs 2
Lecture 5: Non-monotonic and Conditional Reasoning
Lecture 6: Belief Change and Paraconsistent Reasoning
Examination: The exam will consists in the presentation of a research paper chosen by the lectures about one of the presented topics.

Optimal Control

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza S. Francesco 18, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Classroom to be scheduled
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio StefanoGnecco
Email: giorgio.gnecco@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: 11/1/2022: 9-11; 12/1/2022: 11-13; 14/1/2022: 9-11; 18/1/2022: 14-16; 19/1/2022: 14-16; 21/1/2022: 11-13; 24/1/2022: 11-13; 26/1/2022: 11-13; 28/1/2022: 11-13; 31/1/2022: 11-13
Abstract: The course provides an overview of optimal control theory for the deterministic and stochastic cases. Both discrete-time and continuous-time problems are considered, together with some applications to economics.
Syllabus: Lecture Contents:
– An overview of optimal control problems.
– An economic example of an optimal control problem: the cake-eating problem.
– Dynamic programming and Bellman’s equations for the deterministic discrete-time case.
– Reachability/controllability and observability/reconstructability for time-invariant linear dynamical systems.
– The Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation for continuous-time deterministic optimal control problems.
– Pontryagin’s principle for continuous-time deterministic optimal control problems.
– LQ optimal control in discrete time for deterministic problems.
– Application of dynamic programming to stochastic and infinite-horizon optimal control problems in discrete time.
– LQ optimal control in discrete time for stochastic problems and Kalman filter.
– Introduction to approximate dynamic programming and reinforcement learning.
– An economic application of optimal control: a dynamic limit pricing model of the firm.

Ph.D. Courses provided by the Ph.D. in Computer Science

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Dipartimento di Informatica, University of PisaDepartment of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Largo Bruno Pontecorvo 3, Pisa
Type: Ph.D. course
Lecturers: Various
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Abstract: The Computer Science Department of the University of Pisa provides Ph.D. courses on different topics.
More details are available at the provided link.
Syllabus:

Philosophy and Neuroscience in Moral Reasoning

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Gustavo Cevolani and Camilla Colombo
Email: gustavo.cevolani@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 14
Timetable: TBD
Abstract: The analysis of moral reasoning and surrounding topics { how to assess \good” and \bad” actions, how to choose between different moral principles, how to justify these choices {is a classical problem of moral philosophy. More recently, moral psychologists started tackling those problems using a descriptive, empirically based approach. Even more recently, neuroethicists” began investigating the neural correlates of moral judgment and the implications of neuroscientific results for moral philosophy. In the meantime, behavioral economists started addressing issues like fairness, altruism, reciprocity and social preferences, documenting the influence of (broadly construed) moral considerations on human decision-making. The course is an introduction to the analysis of moral reasoning at the interface between neuroscience, moral psychology, moral philosophy, and economics. We shall explore problems concerning the biological and neural bases of moral thinking, the role of emotions in moral reasoning, the economic way of interpreting moral behavior, the significance of empirical results for normative theories of morality, and some methodological issues arising within neuroethics.
Syllabus: The topic of each lesson will be decided at the beginning of the course on the basis of student’s feedback; the following is a tentative list subject to change. Please refer to your IMT Google Calendar for the updated schedule. Lecture Topics 1 Presentation, introduction, choice of topics. 2 Moral philosophy 3 Moral psychology and neuroethics 4 Behavioral economics and human sociality 5 Coordination and the evolution of morality 6 Objectivity, reason, and facts in moral reasoning To be approved by the Scientific Board. 170 7 Recap, verification and general discussion.

Philosophy of Science

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Gustavo Cevolani
Email: gustavo.cevolani@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: November- December 2021
Abstract: The course provides an introduction to the basic concepts and problems in the philosophical analysis of scientific reasoning and inquiry. We will focus on some central patterns of reasoning and argumentation in science and critically discuss their features and limitations. Topics covered include the nature of theory and evidence, the logic of theory testing, and the debate about the aims of science and the trustworthiness of scientific results. We shall discuss classical examples and case studies from the history and practice of science to illustrate the relevant problems and theoretical positions. Students will freely engage in brainstorming on these topics and are welcome to propose examples, problems, and methods from their own disciplines..
Syllabus: The topic of each lesson will be decided at the beginning of the course on the basis of student’s feedback; the following is a tentative list subject to change. All lessons, except for the starred ones which are online, are in mixed modality. Lecture Topics 1 Introduction, discussion and choice of specific topics. What is science? 2 How many sciences? The method(s) of science. Exact and inexact sciences. 3 Theories, models, data. Experiments and observations. 4 Inferences in science. Falsification, confirmation, disconfirmation. 5 Bayesian rationality and scientific reasoning. 6 Science, pseudoscience, junk science. 7 History of science and scientific progress. The aim(s) of science. 8 Trust and objectivity in science. The role of experts. 9 Social and human sciences. To be approved by the Scientific Board. 172 10 Science, truth, and reality.Lecture 10. Science, truth, and reality.

Programming & Data Analytics & AI for non-computer scientists (PDAI)

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Andrea Vandin
Email: andrea.vandin@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1,2
Hours: 40
Timetable: https://github.com/EMbeDS-education/ComputingDataAnalysisModeling20232024/wiki/General-Calendar
Abstract: This course will provide a well-structured introduction to the fundamental principles of (object-oriented) programming with applications to data processing and machine learning through a 2-Module structure. Module 1 runs in the first semester, while Module 2 on the second.
A student who has met the objectives of the course will acquire an understanding of the issues and tasks involved in structured computer programming, data analysis, and machine learning, as to be able to make informed decisions.
The course has been designed to target non-computer science students with no or limited experience in programming (module 1) and machine learning (module 2). Students will be guided through a step-by-step learning process enabling them to write complex Python programs, with a focus on complex data analysis and machine learning tasks.
It is possible to attend single modules (20h each).
Prerequisites: No prerequisites.
Evaluation: Group project with final presentation and Jupyter notebook documentation.
Materials: All material will be made available through the wiki below. Additional material: Learning Python (M. Lutz). Statistics and Machine Learning in Python (E.Duchesnay, T.Löfstedt, F.Younes).
Syllabus: Module 1 introduces students to the fundamental principles of structured programming, with applications to data processing and data analysis. It starts from basic notions of programming (variables, data types, collections, control & repetition structures, functions & modules). It then progresses to data processing functionalities (loading, manipulation, and visualization of CSV data).
Module 2 introduces students to the components of typical data analysis processes and machine learning pipelines. It first builds the necessary toolset by introducing popular Python libraries for data manipulation/visualization (NumPy, Pandas, Seaborn, scikit-learn) with simple applications. The toolset is then applied to a more complex case study on the classification of benign and malignant breast cancer, including aspects of data preprocessing, dimensionality reduction, clustering, and classification. The course concludes by introducing hot research-driven topics like process-oriented data science (Process mining).

Programming for data science

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Franco Maria Nardini
Email: francomaria.nardini@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 96
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-data-science-and-business-informatics/timetable-master-in-data-science-business-informatics/
Abstract: This is an introductory course to computer programming and related mathematical/logic background for students without a Bachelor in Computer Science or in Computer Engineering. The objective is to smoothly introduce the student to the programming concepts and tools needed for typical data processing and data analysis tasks. The course consists of lectures and practice in computer labs. The student will be able to use computer programming languages and related mathematical notions for problem reasoning and solving. The student will be able to separate apart the problem constraint and solutions from the actual coding in a specific computer programming language. Computational thinking is the expected ability at the end of the course.
Syllabus:

Quantitative Finance

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: Pisa, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fabrizio Lillo, Giulia Livieri, Giacomo Bormetti (seminars)
Email: classi@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 40
Timetable: https://www.sns.it/it/corsoinsegnamento/quantitative-finance
Abstract: The student will have the familiarity with the elements of the stochastic calculus and with the main models describing the random evolution of the financialprices. He/She will be able to compute the price of derivative options and to discuss the assumptions of the different modelling choices. He/She will be able to estimate volatility, implied volatility and risk premia.

Syllabus: — Stochastic Models for financial markets. Binomial models. Brownian Motion. Martingale. Stochastic Calculus, Itô’s Formula. Levy processes and jump processes. Stochastic Calculus with jump processes. Stochastic Differential Equations (SDE). Kolmogorov’s Equations. Feynman-Kac’s theorem.

— Evaluation of Options. Models of Cox-Ross-Rubinstein and of Black-Scholes. Risk Neutral evaluation (European Options, American Options, Exotic Options). Dynamic evaluations. Market premium and change of numeraire. Affine processes in continuous time and valuation formulae. Models of Merton and Bates.

— Volatility. Volatility surfaces. Extensions of the Black and Scholes Formula and local volatility models. Stochastic Volatility models in continuous time. Estimation of volatility. Stable convergence and infill asymptotic. Realized Measures of Volatility: Asymptotic properties.

— Numerical methods for the estimation of models. Maximum Likelihood Methods: Estimation of coefficients of SDE.

R and Stata for Data Science

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Francesco Serti
Email: francesco.serti@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: 13,14,17,30 June + 6,7,8 July
Abstract: This course aims to provide students with Stata and R language fundamentals to conduct data management and exploratory analysis and implement various econometric and machine learning techniques to address typical research questions in economics.
Syllabus: 1) Introduction to R and STATA
– The basics (objects, manipulation, basic statements, missing data)
– Reading data from files
– Probability distributions
– Basic statistical models
– Graphical procedures
– Packages overview
2) Data Modeling for causal analysis
– Regression analysis
– Matching, Inverse Probability Weighting and doubly robust estimators
– Regression Discontinuity
– Instrumental Variables
– Difference-in-Differences
– Synthetic Control Method
3) Machine Learning (ML) tools for Econometrics
– Predictive analysis with machine learning (shrinkage and tree-based methods)
– ML to build counterfactuals (when no control group is available)
– ML to select control variables and/or instruments
– ML to study heterogeneity of treatment effects
Teaching Method:
After introducing R and Stata, the use of the main available packages for causal inference is explained by reviewing and replicating relevant papers in the applied economics and econometrics literature. The identification strategies and the estimators covered in parts 2) and 3) will be summarized in class, and they will be extensively explained during the course “Advanced Topics in Econometrics” (which will take place contemporaneously with this module).

Random effects models for multilevel and longitudinal data

Institution: Università di Firenze
Location: Firenze, Viale Morgagni 59, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Leonardo Grilli and Carla Rampichini
Email: leonardo.grilli@unifi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 12
Timetable: 22, 23, 24, 25 January 2024
Abstract: The course introduces the theory and practice of random effects (mixed effects)
models for the analysis of multilevel data in both cross-sectional and longitudinal settings.
Emphasis is placed on model specification and interpretation. The course covers random
effects models for continuous responses and for categorical responses.
Syllabus: na

Sicurezza dei sistemi informatici

Institution: Università di Sassari
Location: University of Sassari
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Massimo Tistarelli
Email: tista@uniss.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 60
Timetable: Not available yet
Abstract: This course deals with security issues in modern networked computer systems, paying special attention to data security and protection of computer networks and networked computer applications, in a closed (Intranet) or open (Internet) environment.
The course aims to teach the skills needed to perform both the analysis and the high-level design of the security features of IT components and systems.
Syllabus:

SISS: Statistical Inference for the Social Sciences

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Chiara Seghieri, Costanza Tortù
Email: chiara.seghieri@santannapisa.it; costanza.tortu@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: https://github.com/EMbeDS-education/ComputingDataAnalysisModeling20232024/wiki/General-Calendar
Abstract: This course provides a review of the elements of statistical inference, applied to real-world data. Compared to traditional courses on Statistics, this course provides a practice-oriented approach: the course intends to present statistical methodologies while applying them in the analysis of real-world data, with a particular focus on the interpretation of results
Syllabus: See abstract and link

Social Network Analysis

Institution: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Location: Online
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Online
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giulio Rossetti, Chiara Boldrini
Email: c.boldrini@iit.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: May-June 2024
Abstract: Over the past decade, there has been a growing public fascination with the complex “connectedness” of modern society. This connectedness is found in many contexts: in the rapid growth of the Internet and the Web, in the ease with which global communication now takes place, and in the ability of news and information as well as epidemics and financial crises to spread around the world with surprising speed and intensity. These are phenomena that involve networks and the aggregate behavior of groups of people; they are based on the links that connect us and the ways in which each of our decisions can have subtle consequences for the outcomes of everyone else. This crash course is an introduction to the analysis of complex networks, made possible by the availability of big data, with a special focus on the social network and its structure and function. Drawing on ideas from computing and information science, complex systems, mathematic and statistical modeling, economics, and sociology, this lecture sketchily describes the emerging field of study that is growing at the interface of all these areas, addressing fundamental questions about how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected.
Syllabus: Lecture 1: Intro: Why should we care about Complex Networks? Networks & Graphs: Basic Measures
Lecture 2: Random Networks, Small World property, Scale-Free networks
Lecture 3: Measuring Node Centrality & Tie Strength
Lecture 4: Community Detection
Lecture 5: Resilience to attacks and failures
Lecture 4: Epidemics

Social network analysis

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Dino Pedreschi
Email: dino.pedreschi@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 48
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-data-science-and-business-informatics/timetable-master-in-data-science-business-informatics/
Abstract: Over the past decade there has been a growing public fascination with the complex “connectedness” of modern society. This connectedness is found in many contexts: in the rapid growth of the Internet and the Web, in the ease with which global communication now takes place, and in the ability of news and information as well as epidemics and financial crises to spread around the world with surprising speed and intensity. These are phenomena that involve networks and the aggregate behavior of groups of people; they are based on the links that connect us and the ways in which each of our decisions can have subtle consequences for the outcomes of everyone else. This course is an introduction to the analysis of complex networks, with a special focus on social networks and the Web – their structure and function, and how it can be exploited to search for information. Drawing on ideas from computing and information science, applied mathematics, economics and sociology, the course describes the emerging field of study that is growing at the interface of all these areas, addressing fundamental questions about how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected. Data-driven analysis of complex networks using a variety of models and software tools.
Syllabus:

Socio-Economic Networks

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, P.zza San Francesco 19, 55100 Lucca (Italy)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Massimo Riccaboni
Email: massimo.riccaboni@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 20
Timetable: The timetable may be subject to change: please write to phd@imtlucca.it and ask to have the calendar shared.
Abstract: The topic of the course will be the analysis of socio-economic networks. The course will consist of three parts: (1) basic notions of social network analysis; (2) micro-level networks of individuals and firms; (3) meso and macro-level networks of sectors and countries. The first part will focus on some basic notions of social network analysis. Individual and inter organizational networks will be analyzed in the second part, with a special focus on peer effects and the division of labor within and across firm boundaries. The third part on the empirics of meso and macro networks in economics will focus on international trade, human mobility, production, and finance. All parts will give you a brief overview of the literature, which predominantly adopted an econometric approach to network analysis.
Syllabus: Section I: Graph theory and social network analysis
● Slot 1: Social networks: basic concepts; embeddedness, reflection problem; strong and weak ties (EK, chapters 2, 3)
● Slot 2: Homophily, preferential attachment, and balance (EK, chapters 4, 5, 18)
● Slot 3: Small world, cascading behavior and information cascades (EK, chapters 16, 19, 20)
Section II: Socio-economic networks: Individuals and Organizations
● Slot 4: Influence and peer effects in social networks (readings 1-4)
● Slot 5: Firms’ collaborative agreements; networks of innovators (readings 5-8)Section III: Empirics of Meso and Macro-Economic Networks
● Slot 6: Trade networks and gravity (9-12)
● Slot 7: Migration and human mobility (13-16)
● Slot 8: Financial networks and systemic risk (17-19)
● Slot 9: Production and knowledge networks (20-23)
● Slot 10: Complexity and fitness (24-26)

Statistical and Machine Learning Models for Time Series Analysis

Institution: Scuola Normale Superiore
Location: Pisa, piazza dei Cavalieri 7
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Fabrizio Lillo, Giulia Livieri
Email: giulia.livieri@sns.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 40
Timetable: https://www.sns.it/en/corsoinsegnamento/statistical-and-machine-learning-models-time-series-analysis
Abstract: The objective of the course is to provide the main elements of the theory of time series analysis by using methods from statistics, econometrics, and machine learning. The course also provides working knowledge for the computational modeling of empirical time series as well as for the simulation and inference of statistical models.

Syllabus: Introduction. Components of a time series (trend, cycle, seasonal, irregular), stationarity, autocorrelation and dependencies, approaches to time series analysis. Review of estimation methods (Least Squares, Maximum Likelihood, Generalized Method of Moments).

Linear models. ARMA processes, partial autocorrelation, invertibility, ARIMA models for non-stationary series. Inference of linear models: identification and fitting, diagnostics, Ljung-Box statistic; model selection. Vector AutoRegressive models, reduced form, structural form e identification issues. Granger causality.

State space models. Filtering, prediction and smoothing; Kalman recursions; local level models. Particle filtering and smoothing, Score Driven models, Hidden Markov Models.

Neural networks for time series. Introduction to (Deep) Neural Networks, Inference of time series models with Machine Learning methods. Overview of time series forecasting via ML and Deep Learning Libraries: TensorFlow, Keras. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Gated Architectures (LSTMs, GRUs), Bi-directional RNNs, Deep RNN. Reservoir computing and Echo State Networks. Applications and examples.

Introduction to Reinforcement Learning.

Statistical Learning and Large Data (SLLD)

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: https://github.com/EMbeDS-education/ComputingDataAnalysisModeling20232024/wiki/General-Calendar
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Francesca Chiaromonte
Email: francesca.chiaromonte@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 40
Timetable: https://github.com/EMbeDS-education/ComputingDataAnalysisModeling20232024/wiki/General-Calendar
Abstract: This course will introduce the students to various topics in contemporary Statistical Learning and to methods used to analyze the large, complex datasets that are increasingly common in many scientific fields. The content will be organized in two Modules that the students can attend in different years. Compared to traditional courses, the focus will be on analyzing actual datasets of interest to the students through group projects and Practicum sessions associated to each lecture.
Syllabus: Module 1
– Unsupervised classification; Clustering methods
– Unsupervised dimension reduction; Principal Components Analysis and related techniques
– Supervised classification methods
– Non-parametric regression methods
– Smoothing
– Resampling methods, Cross Validation.
Prerequisites: a working knowledge of basic statistical inference (point estimation, confidence intervals, testing) and linear and generalized linear models. This may be obtained, or refreshed, through Applied Statistics.
Evaluation: Group project with final presentation and written report.
Materials: An Introduction to Statistical Learning – with Applications in R (James, Witten, Hastie, Tibshirani; Springer). Links to further material will be provided as needed.
Module 2
– Feature selection and regularization techniques for high-dimensional Linear and Generalized Linear Models
– Feature screening algorithms for ultra-high dimensional supervised problems
– Supervised dimension reduction; Sufficient Dimension Reduction and related techniques
– Subsampling/partitioning approaches for ultra-high sample sizes
– Under- and oversampling approaches for data rebalancing
Prerequisites: a working knowledge of the methods comprised in Module 1.
Evaluation: Group project with final presentation and written report.
Materials: An Introduction to Statistical Learning – with Applications in R (James, Witten, Hastie, Tibshirani; Springer). Computer Age Statistical Inference (B. Efron, T. Hastie). Links to further material will be provided as needed.

Statistical Mechanics

Institution: Università di Bologna
Location: Bologna, Dipartimento di Matematica,Via di Porta San Donato 5
Type: Post graduate Master course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Pierluigi Contucci
Email: a.barbieri@unibo.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 48
Timetable: https://www.unibo.it/en/teaching/course-unit-catalogue/course-unit/2021/469867/orariolezioni
Abstract: At the end of the course the student is acquainted with the basic notions of statistical mechanics like, for instance, the concept of equilibrium probability measure. He is able to deal with the study of new scientific results, theoretical and applied, where statistical mechanics is involved.

Syllabus: – Introduction.

– Probability spaces, Entropy and its property.

– Probability spaces as simplexes.

– Interacting particle systems and Ising models. Ising model in d=1 with free and periodic boundary conditions.

– Dichotomic functions and their Fourier expansion.

– Simple notions for Ising models at d>1

– The thermodynamic limit and correlation inequalities.

– Mean field models. Curie-Weiss model.

– Thermodynamic limit for mean field models.

– The solution of the Curie Weiss model with bounds from above and below.

– Large number theorem and central limit theorem for the magnetization. Free model and model with interaction.

– Large deviation theory and solution of the Curie Weiss model.

– Theoretical inverse problem: from thermodynamic quantities to parameters.

– Phenomenological inverse problem: from real data to thermodynamic quantities.

– Maximum likelihood.

– The Sherrington and Kirkpatrick model. Parisi solution. Guerra Talagrand proof for the free energy. Panchenko proof for ultrametricity.

– Associative memory and the Hopfield model.

– The multi-specie generalization of the SK model.

– Deep-learning architecture with cilindrical and conical boundary conditions. Bounds for the free energy.

– Learning and retrieval equivalence.

– Seminars on recent advances.

Statistics for data science

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Salvatore Ruggieri
Email: salvatore.ruggieri@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 72
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-data-science-and-business-informatics/timetable-master-in-data-science-business-informatics/
Abstract: The student who completes successfully the course will have a solid knowledge on the main concepts and tools of statistical analysis, including the definition of a statistical model, the inference of its parameters with confidence intervals, the use of hypothesis testing, bayesian and causal inference, with specific applications to problems and models useful in data science. Finally the student will be able to use the language R for performing statistical analyses.
Syllabus: The program covers the basic methodologies, techniques and tools of statistical analysis. This includes basic knowledge of probability theory, random variables, convergence theorems, statistical models, estimation theory, hypothesis testing, bayesian inference, causal reasoning. Other topics covered include bootstrap, expectation-maximization, and applications to data science problems. Finally the program covers the use of the language R for statistical analysis.

Stochastic Processes and Stochastic Calculus

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: Lucca, Piazza San Francesco, 19, classroom 1 or 2
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Irene Crimaldi
Email: irene.crimaldi@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: April, 21, 26, 28 and May, 2, 5, , 9, 12, 16, 19, 23 and exam June 17
Abstract: Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will:
– be familiar with some important stochastic processes,
– be familiar with Ito stochastic calculus,
– be able to identify appropriate stochastic model(s) for a given research problem,
– appreciate the importance of mathematical formalization in solving probabilistic and statistical problems,
– be able to independently read mathematical and statistical literature on stochastic processes, stochastic calculus and their applications.
Abstract:
This course aims at introducing some important stochastic processes and Ito stochastic calculus. Some proofs are sketched or omitted in order to have more time for examples, applications and exercises.
Syllabus: Lecture Contents:
This course deals with the following topics:
– Poisson process (definition, properties and applications);
– Conditional expectation;
– Martingales and co. (definitions and basic properties, Burkholder transform, stopping theorem and some applications, predictable compensator and Doob decomposition, some convergence results, game theory interpretation);
– Introduction to stochastic processes with reinforcement;
– Wiener process (definitions, some properties, Donsker theorem, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test)
– Ito calculus (Ito stochastic integral, Ito processes and stochastic differential, Ito formula,
stochastic differential equations, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, Geometric Brownian motion,
Feynman-Kac Representation formula).

Survey Methods: Traditional and New Techniques in Official Statistics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Pisa, Polo didattico Le Piagge
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Monica Pratesi – Linda Porciani- Luca Faustini- Roberta Varriale
Email: porciani@istat.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 42
Timetable: https://esami.unipi.it/programma.php?c=51614&aa=2021&cid=120&did=17

Abstract: At the end of the course the student will have knowledge on

1) data collection methods

2) the use of secondary sources in data production

3) the use of R

At the end of the course student will be able to deal with traditional and modern data collection methods and will be able to present a simple policy paper using data from official surveys or other sources.

Syllabus: 1) Data collection methods

Official statistics: meaning and implications; Data collection procedure. The general model GSBPM; Data collection solutions. Introduction to difference model based| model assisted; Reference population, Survey population, Survey frame, Field organization, Contact of reporting units., Questionnaires, Direct observation, Electronic data reporting, Administrative data, Big data. Data quality.

2) The use of secondary sources in data production

Definitions and nature of secondary data, framework for access to the data, quality, data linkage and matching, supporting statistical surveys with administrative data, administrative data in the production of statistical register, a register based statistical system.

3) R software

Data structure and functions; Data elaboration; Plot and indicators

Symbolic and Evolutionary Artificial Intelligence

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino, 1. Room still to be defined
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Marco Cococcioni
Email: marco.cococcioni@unipi.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 60
Timetable: https://unimap.unipi.it/registri/dettregistriNEW.php?re=3311947::::&ri=010764
Abstract: This is a 60h course for students enrolled in the Master degree in Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering course at the School of Engineering of the University of Pisa. It is scheduled at the second year/second semester, so it assumes that the students already have attended basic courses in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The main focus of the course is in multi-objective evolutionary optimization and reinforcement learning, but it also touches hardware accelerators for AI. In particular, we will show how to implement hardware accelerators for AI in electronics (mainly referring to the RISC-V architecture) and recent advances on hardware implementation of photonic neural networks.
Syllabus: https://unimap.unipi.it/registri/dettregistriNEW.php?re=3311947::::&ri=010764

Text Analytics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Andrea Esuli
Email: andrea.esuli@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 1
Hours: 48
Timetable: http://didawiki.cli.di.unipi.it/doku.php/mds/txa/start
Abstract: The course targets text analytics systems and applications to respond to business problems by discovering and presenting knowledge that is otherwise locked in textual form. The objective is to learn to recognize situations in which text analytics techniques can solve information processing needs, to identify the analytic task/process that best models the business problem, to select the most appropriate resources methods and tools, to collect text data and apply such methods to them. Several applications context will be presented: information extraction, sentiment analysis (what is the nature of commentary on an issue), spam and fake posts detection, quantification problems, summarization, etc.
Syllabus:

The Interplay Among Cooperative Games, Team Optimization, And Machine Learning: Basic Concepts And Case Studies

Institution: Università di Siena
Location: University of Siena, Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, Via Roma 56, 53100, Siena (Italy), San Niccolò Building
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Giorgio Gnecco
Email: giorgio.gnecco@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: July 22-26, 2024
Abstract: Interactions among agents are studied in several disciplines such as Biology, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Network Science, Political Science, Robotics. The main goal of this course consists in showing the interplay between Cooperative Game Theory, Team Optimization, and Machine Learning to deal with the analysis of the interaction of several agents, focusing on a variety of case studies from a wide spectrum of applications.
Syllabus: • Applications of Cooperative Game Theory, Team Optimization, and/or Machine Learning in:
o analysis of human movement
o estimating players’ importance in sports
o optimal production in a multidivisional firm
o reaching consensus in a network
o transportation network analysis

Theories of rationality

Institution: Scuola IMT Lucca
Location: IMT Lucca
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: No
Lecturers: Gustavo Cevolani and Camilla Colombo
Email: gustavo.cevolani@imtlucca.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 10
Timetable: TBD
Abstract: see link above
Syllabus: see link above

Time Series Analysis

Institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Location: Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 56127 Pisa (Italia)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: To Be Decided
Email: laura.magazzini@santannapisa.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: To be decided. It will be held in the period January-February. Contact the lecturer for further details and updates
Abstract: The course aims to cover basic topics in time-series and financial econometrics. The course will deliver a general overview of a comprehensive list of empirical methods that allow researchers to use econometric method to analyse time-series data. Such tools are essential for PhD students who aspire to conduct careful, state-of-the-art empirical research. In addition, the course will provide general guidance on formulating and executing (empirical) research ideas.
Syllabus: Review of estimation methods (OLS, MLE, GMM, Indirect Inference); ARMA processes; ARCH and GARCH models; Realized Variance, Realized Covariance, Realized volatility modelling; Non stationary process and Cointegration (an introduction); Vector processes, VAR (reduced form, structural form and identification issues); Kalman Filter; Generalized Autoregressive Score (GAS) models and their applications to financial and economic problems.

Towards Interpretable Neural-symbolic Artificial Intelligence

Institution: Università di Siena
Location: University of Siena – Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e Scienze Matematiche, Via Roma 56, 53100, Siena, Italy (San Niccolò Building)
Type: Ph.D. course
Attendance Mode: In person
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Francesco Giannini, Michelangelo Diligenti
Email: michelangelo@gmal.com
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 20
Timetable: July 8-12, 2024 h. 9.00 – 13.00
Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has witnessed remarkable progress in recent years, particularly in the fields of deep learning and neural networks. While these advances have led to unprecedented performances in various applications, they have also raised significant ethical and security questions, which are exacerbated by the lack of interpretability of the decision mechanism of AI systems. These limitations have sprinkled the research on explainable AI (XAI), which has brought the introduction of a wide class of methodologies aiming at explaining an existing black-box model. Another relevant research direction is to explicate the formal reasoning process of a machine learning system, hence making the inference process more transparent. A possible attempt in this regard is to represent all the available knowledge about a problem as a Knowledge Graphs (KG), where the logic knowledge is represented as a graph connecting related concepts, which can be processed using neural networks, leading to a class of models known as Knowledge Graph Embeddings (KGE). More direct attempts to model human reasoning have been carried out within the areas of Statistical Relational AI (StarAI) and Neural-Symbolic (NeSy) AI, which tackle this challenge by combining symbolic reasoning with probabilistic graphical models and neural networks, respectively.

Syllabus: “This course will cover the following topics: (i) a brief introduction to the basic notions about neural networks and symbolic reasoning, (ii) a survey on the existing categories of XAI methodologies with special attention to some popular models; (iii) a comprehensive review of the current status of the research on StarAI and NeSy, presenting state-of-the-art algorithms and models; (iv) finally, we will outline the currently open research questions and possible future directions to encourage progress and innovation towards the development of interpretable-by-design NeSy approaches.

Program:
• Introduction to Neural Networks and Knowledge Representation, and Reasoning
• Explainable AI principles and methodologies
• Neural-Symbolic integration: concepts, methods and implementations
• Future research directions”

Visual analytics

Institution: Università di Pisa
Location: Polo Fibonacci, University of Pisa
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Salvatore Rinzivillo
Email: salvatore.rinzivillo@isti.cnr.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 48
Timetable: https://didattica.di.unipi.it/en/master-programme-in-data-science-and-business-informatics/timetable-master-in-data-science-business-informatics/
Abstract: The module aims at preparing students to the approprieted presentation of data and knowledge extracted from them through visualization tools and narratives that exploit multimedia.
The module first presents the basic visualization techniques for the effective presentation of information from several different sources: structured data (relational, hierarchies, trees), relational data (social networks), temporal data, spatial data and spatio-temporal data.
Syllabus:

Visual computing

Institution: Università di Sassari
Location: University of Sassari
Type: MSc course
Attendance Mode: Blended
Exam: Yes
Lecturers: Marinella Cadoni; Massimo Tistarelli
Email: maricadoni@uniss.it
Academic Year: 2023/2024
Semester: 2
Hours: 60
Timetable: Not yet available
Abstract: In Visual Computing verranno fornite le tecniche di base di elaborazione di immagini e di analisi di immagini. Partendo dalla formazione delle immagini, gli studenti apprenderanno gli algortimi fondamentali per la compressione, l’eliminazione di disturbi, l’esaltazione di particolari, l’estrazione di informazione. Sperimenteranno gli algortimi appresi nello svolgimento di mini-progetti di elaborazione di immagini provenienti da diversi sistemi di acquisizione, come fotocamere digitali e microscopi.
Syllabus: Introduction.
Human Visual System. Camera sensors. Camera model. Image formation.
Image sampling, quantization, image operations.
Image and video compression.
Image spatial processing. Linear filters, convolution. Non-linear filters, median filter. Histogram equalization.
Image restoration.
Edge detection and gradient. Image segmentation. Image features, DoG, SIFT.
SVD
PCA
k-means and mean–shift clustering
Linear classifier /classification