| 1 | Scalable data processing for data science (16 hrs, 4 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Paolo MISSIER, University of Birmingham, UK SYLLABUS: The teaching offer is designed to fit within the context of Unimore’s PhD programs in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Math. It will consist of a series of topical seminars and practical lab sessions, for a total of about 16 hours. The seminars are organized into two parts. Part I, described here, runs over 10 hours and is focused on Explainable AI (XAI), covering the following topics: – The need for explanations in Machine Learning and AI – Classical global and local methods : LIME and Shapley (Shap values) – Influence functions: a robust statistical approach that has recently (circqa 2017) been revisited to associate a relative importance to training examples for explaining a specific model inference. One key advantage of using influence analysis over other methods, is its ability to bypass the “black box” barrier that is typical of complex nonlinear models (eg deep neural networks). The programme includes: – About 4 hours of seminar-style lectures, using key papers and a recent survey to dive into specific approaches to using influence functions – Guided study to relevant literature, where students are required to select recent work from a portfolio of recommended papers, and to present their insights to the class – Practical work using python libraries that implement influence-based methods to provide explanations, in combination with simple ML models. DATES (all classes will be held in the Math building of the FIM Department, via Campi 213/B – Modena): Part I Mon 12/5 h.12:00-14:00 – classroom M2.3 Tue 13/5 h.11:00-13:00 – 14:00-16:00 – sala Riunioni piano uffici Thu 15/5 h. 11:00-13:00 – 14:00-16:00 – sala Riunioni piano uffici Part II (Tentative – November 2025) | |
| 2 | Semantic Approaches for Entity Resolution (4 hrs, 1 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Donatella FIRMANI, Sapienza Università di Roma SYLLABUS: Part I: An overview of Big Data Integration focusing on Entity Resolution. We will discuss how Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Foundation Models can be used to address the matching problem. Relevant background on the core concepts will also be provided (2 hours). Part II: In-depth discussion on fundamental topics addressing the main challenges in Big Data Entity Resolution. Blocking for scalability; clustering for error management; explainable methods for shedding light on the model behavior; and fairness for bias reduction. (2 hours) DATES: (Tentative – June 2025) | |
| 3 | Towards Adaptive Context-aware Intelligent Environments (4 hrs, 1 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Francesco LEOTTA, Sapienza Università di Roma SYLLABUS: Intelligent environments are physical spaces implementing the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence. Humans and machines (including robots) operate in smart spaces according to contextual information subject to sudden changes. Context does not only include static data but also structured and unstructured processes that should be flexible towards users (e.g., smart homes) or must adapt to small and large scale disruptions (e.g., smart factories and supply chains). While the need of mining and modeling processes in such scenarios has been unanimously recognized by the community, most of the proposed approaches do not properly take into account the specific challenges of smart spaces, applying instead approaches valid for classically considered processes (e.g., customer management). These challenges include bridging the gap between IoT data and process tasks, the need to define processes on the fly, the selection of the best process model according to contextual variables (e.g., machine wear) and varying rewards, the automated enactment of processes preserving the safety of the humans, considering the possible collaborations with robots and machines, and, finally, the unsupervised nature of involved learning tasks. In this seminar, we will present recent results and we will outline how to tackle identified challenges towards novel solutions of practical applicability. DATES: (Tentative – June 2025) | |
| 4 | Privacy-enhancing technologies (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Luca FERRETTI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: The course offers an introduction to privacy-enhancing technologies (PET), which are security solutions that aim at minimizing information disclosure during data processing. The course outlines the most important system models and security guarantees related to PETs, including information sharing, collaborative and outsourced computation, transparency architectures, and discusses the most popular techniques based on applied cryptography and hardware-related technologies. The course especially focuses on practical solutions and include hands-on sessions based on existing software frameworks. DATES: This course will be offered the next academic year (2025/2026) | |
| 5 | Advanced GPU programming – libraries for data science (16 hrs, 4 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Nicola CAPODIECI, Filippo MUZZINI, Roberto CAVICCHIOLI, UNIMORE – FIM/DCE SYLLABUS: This course will dive deep into advanced concepts of GPU Programming and architectures. In the first part, advanced CUDA programming concepts will be presented, focussing on the latest evolution of the CUDA programming model and architectural features such as scheduling, programming best practices and CPU – GPU interaction optimizations along with comparison discussions with other GPGPU APIs. In the second part of the course, widely used CUDA libraries for numerical calculus and data science will be presented through extensive examples, such as cuBLAS, cuSOLVER and cuSPARSE for numerical optimization, cuFFT for signal processing and NPP for image processing. DATES: (Tentative – September 2025) | |
| 6 | Internet and Web of Things at the Edge (8hrs, 2 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Luca BEDOGNI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: The class will focus on modern smart IoT systems, which are found in many different scenarios. The course will present at first the Internet of Things and Web of Things scenario, and will then move to practical problems in such environments. The class is focused on the key challenges that low power devices have when processing information. This can be done directly on the device itself, if possible, or can be offloaded to close edge servers. Two reference scenarios pertaining e-Health and Industry 4.0 will be discussed and analyzed in detail, highlighting the key differences and practical issues which can be found. The class will conclude by discussing future research directions. DATES (All rooms are located in the Math building, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena): – 23 may 2025 – 14:00 – 16:00 – Room M2.4 – 29 may 2025 – 14:00 – 16:00 – Room M2.3 – 30 may 2025 – 14:00 – 18:00 – Room M2.4 | |
| 7 | Vulnerability research (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Mauro ANDREOLINI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: This course will introduce students to the methodological and practical aspects of security vulnerability research in software. The involved activities are at the basis of identifying unknown and sophisticated flaws (typically resulting in a chain of more elementary ones) that current software solutions are not able to find automatically. Classes are organized as a series of seminars and practical lab sessions discussing the following topics: – static analysis – dynamic analysis – formal verification methods – semi-automated testing DATES (All classes will take place in Room M0.2, located in the Math building, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena): 10 july 2025 – 9:00 -12:00 17 july 2025 – 9:00 -12:00 24 july 2025 – 9:00 -12:00 31 july 2025 – 9:00 -12:00 | |
| 8 | Efficient DL/ML models for embedded systems (12hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Alessandro CAPOTONDI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: The execution of sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads is no longer a prerogative of high-end, high-performance computing systems. Energy- and resource-constrained embedded devices, also called edge devices, are increasingly embracing this type of functionality, which is key to enabling the realization of smart, autonomous systems (unmanned aerial and terrestrial vehicles, robotic arms, etc.). This class will present an overview of the state-of-the-art methodologies for effective and efficient deployment of Deep Learning and Machine Learning (DL/ML) models on edge embedded systems. The topics presented include quantization, pruning and network-architecture-search (NAS) strategies targeting practical and realistic challenges of deploying state-of-the-art DL/ML tasks on edge systems (e.g. NVIDIA Tegra, Xilinx MPSoC, MCU-class RISC-V and ARM SoCs). The class will then close by providing insights on near-to-come research directions in the field. DATES (All rooms are located in the Math building, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena): – 28 February 2025 – 14:00 – 17:00 – ROOM M0.2 – 7 March 2025 – 14:00 – 17:00 – ROOM M2.4 – 14 March 2025 – 14:00 – 17:00 – ROOM M2.4 – 21 March 2025 – 14:00 – 17:00 – ROOM M2.4 | |
| 9 | Complexity Theory, On-Line and Approximation Algorithms (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Manuela MONTANGERO, Mauro LEONCINI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: The course will introduce students to theory of computational complexity. The first (shorter) part of the course will be dedicated to the introduction of the fundaments of complexity theory and the definition of the most important complexity classes. The second part of the course will be dedicated to the study of approximation and on-line algorithms. The former are used to address difficult problems (NP-complete or NP-hard), the latter for those problems whose input is not completely available at the beginning of the execution of a solving algorithm. To this aim, problems with interesting applications in distributed/parallel system and data science scenarios will be selected. DATES: (all classes will take place in the Math building of the FIM Department, via Campi 213/b, Modena) June 12 – h 9:00 – 13:00 – Room M2.4 June 25 – h 9:00 – 13:00 – Room TBD June 26 – h 9:00 – 13:00 – Room TBD | |
| 10 | From C/C++ to Rust (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Fabio PELLACINI, UNIMORE – FIM SYLLABUS: Rust has recently emerged as an alternative to C++ as a systems language in many application domains, including networking, kernel-level development, embedded systems, and tools. In this course we will discuss the advantages of Rust from both a programming language and its software ecosystem perspective. DATES: (all classes will take place in the Math building of the FIM Department, via Campi 213/b, Modena) – 03/12/24 08:00-11:00 Aula 1.7 Disegno – 05/12/24 14:00-17:00 Laboratorio Zironi – 11/12/24 09:00-12:00 Laboratorio Zironi – 11/12/24 14:00-17:00 Aula M2.2 | |
| 11 | Introduction to complex systems (8hrs, 2 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Marco VILLANI, UNIMORE – FIM DATES: 5 February, 2025 – 14:00 – 16:00 6, 12, 13 February, 2025 – 9:00 – 11:00 All classes will take place in Room M1.6, Math building of the FIM Department, via Campi 213/b, Modena Refer to Prof. Marco Villani (marco.villani@unimore.it) for further information. | |
| 13 | Multi-objective Optimization and Symbolic Regression (12hr, 3ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Veronica GUIDETTI, UNIMORE – FIM DATES (All rooms are located in the Math building, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena): – 24 February 2025 – 10:00 – 13:00 – ROOM M2.5 – 25 February 2025 – 10:00 – 13:00 – ROOM M1.3 – 3 March 2025 – 10:00 – 13:00 – ROOM M2.5 – 4 March 2025 – 14:00 – 17:00 – ROOM M2.4 | |
| 14 | Computer Graphics in the Era of AI (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Fabio PELLACINI, UNIMORE – FIM DATES (All rooms are located in the Math building, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena): – 20/05 08:00-11:00 – Room M2.4 – 20/05 14:00-17:00 – Room M2.4 – 21/05 08:00-11:00 – Room M2.3 – 21/05 14:00-17:00 – Room M2.4 | |
| 15 | Methods for social and economic science and data (24 hrs, 6 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Stefano GHINOI, Elvira PELLE, UNIMORE (DCE) SYLLABUS: The course aims at introducing Social Network Analysis (SNA) to doctoral students, which is based on the use of quantitative tools for mapping and analyzing qualitative models of relationships that connect individuals, organizations and institutions. The course provides an overview of the main networking approaches and is structured around a series of theoretical sessions and practical (mini) workshops; in these labs students will have the opportunity to use Python to analyze real networks. The main topics covered in this course are the following: 1) History of SNA and theoretical approaches; 2) network structure data; 3) network statistics; 4) clusters and online communities; 5) network models. By the end of the course, students will be able to understand how to collect, analyze and interpret network data to address social and economic challenges. DATES: May 5, 6, 7, 8, 26, 27 (2025) — h 13:30 – 17:30 — Aula Riunioni, Dipartimento di Comunicazione ed Economia, Reggio Emilia. | |
| 16 | Quantitative and formal modeling of historical sciences (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Cristina GUARDIANO, UNIMORE – DCE The research line proposed by the PCM combines the goal of reconstructing language history with the analytical tools of formal grammar: its basic hypothesis is that, contrary to most claims over the past two centuries, syntactic diversity encodes language history to a remarkable extent and is able to provide historical information at a more profound time depth than classical word etymologies. The course presents the major historical results obtained by the PCM at various levels of historical depth, with a special focus on the computational tools implemented to measure parametric relatedness, extract and evaluate the phylogenetic signal encoded by syntactic parameters. DATES: 15, 16, 17 January 2025 10:30 – 12:30 14:00 – 16:00 ROOM: Sala riunioni, Palazzo Dossetti, 2nd floor, viale A. Allegri 9, Reggio Emilia More information available at this link | |
| 17 | Coding Syntactic Diversity (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Cristina GUARDIANO, UNIMORE – DCE SYLLABUS: The course presents the structure of the parameter system used to perform language comparison in the PCM. Introduction The application of computational techniques to code, annotate and parse linguistic data has benefited from the increasing availability of digital corpora but also, crucially, from the refinement of formal models of human language structure and diversity. This course presents one such models, recently developed to encode the syntactic diversity attested in the world’s languages, and its application to the analysis of closed corpora of linguistic data. DATES: 29, 30, 31 January 2025 10:30 – 12:30 14:00 – 16:00 ROOM: Sala riunioni, Palazzo Dossetti, 2nd floor, viale A. Allegri 9, Reggio Emilia More information available at this link | |
| 18 | Labour market, intelligence and digital organization (12hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Matteo RINALDINI, UNIMORE – DCE SYLLABUS: The course aims to reflect on the relationship between technological innovation and organisational innovation through the various perspectives that, in the socio-economic field and in the field of innovation studies, have subjected a deterministic interpretation of technology to criticism. Various theoretical perspectives derived from organisational studies and innovation studies (SCOT, ANT, sociomateriality, etc.) will be analysed and compared with each other, and through these perspectives the current techno-organisational developments attributable to the so-called fourth industrial revolution and in general to the processes of digitalisation of work and production activities will be analysed. The various topics will be addressed not only through lectures, but also through the discussion of materials, seminars and workshops that may include the presence of external experts and colleagues. DATES: 22 May 2025 (9.00-13.00; 14.00-18.00) 30 May 2025 (Seminar 14.00-18.00 “Integration of AI in organisational processes” provisional title) ROOM: Aula Biblioteca Antica, Collegio San Carlo, Via San Carlo, 5, Modena. | |
| 19 | Sociosemiotic analysis and Sociology of Data. Examples from Data visualization to environmental and social phenomena (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Federico MONTANARI, UNIMORE – DCE SYLLABUS: The course analyzes the effects that data and technologies have on current social systems. Through studies in the sociology of sciences and technologies, the course provides a point of view that helps to balance technical-computational aspects with issues of social responsibility. The topics of the course concern the use of data from a technological and social point of view. The sociological and sociosemiotic areas of interest are STS (Science and technological studies) and ANT (Theory of actor networks). DATES: June 30 – h 14:00 – 18:00 July 14 – h 14:00 – 18:00 July 15 – h 14:00 – 18:00 ROOM: Sala riunioni, Palazzo Dossetti, 2nd floor, viale A. Allegri 9, Reggio Emilia | |
| 20 | Business Model Innovation (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Paolo DI TOMA, UNIMORE – DCE SYLLABUS: The course aims to evaluate how data-driven management, digitalization of internal and external processes and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in market relationships could impact on firms’ economic performance and innovation rates of business models, a new and relevant unit for analyzing strategic and organizational growth paths of firms. The course will introduce the main research streams and the most promising research avenues in the current debate, specifically focusing on relationships among sustainability and circular economy, on one side, and digitalization, applied data science and AI, on the other side. DATES: (Tentative – May 2025) | |
| 21 | Corsi Di Formazione Complementare Per Dottorandi E Assegnisti Ediz. 2024/2025 (24 hrs, 6 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Barbara REBECCHI, Ferdinando DI MAGGIO, Federica MANZOLI, Nadja SEDING, Giulia CATELLANI, Valeria BERGONZINI, Valeria GOLDONI, UNIMORE – International Research Office SYLLABUS: The course is composed of 4 modular sessions: a. Policies for research and innovation: this session explains where the fundings for research come from. Opportunities and practices for national and international funding for research and innovation are explained; b. Planning the research: In this session all the various phases of the planning of research are explained: the EU finding policies and calls; the project cycle, the structure of the action and cost plan, the actors involved; the negotiation and the management of the european projects; c. Exploitation of the research results; d. Intellectual property: IP rights, protection methods, patents; management and exploitation of the IP; patent databases. This course is mandatory for all PhD students DATES: 13, 14, 15 January, 2025 20, 21 January 2025 More information at this link. | |
| 22 | Bibliographic research, scientific writing and dissemination: tools, techniques and strategies (12 hrs, 3 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Michele POLA, Andrea SOLIERI, UNIMORE – Ufficio Bibliometrico – SBA SYLLABUS: The course aims at teaching the skills and the knowledge for using the specific library services and resources for doctoral students; for being productive in information retrieval, in preparing a bibliography, in writing a scientific article, so to support the Ph.D. students in their path with an outlook at their post-doc career. The course will provide an in-depth introduction to the following aspects: • resources for basic information retrieval like OPACs, UNISTORE and OneClick discovery tool • resources for advanced information retrieval like scientific databases like Scopus and Web of science. • the scientific journal as the main vehicle for STEMM research dissemination. • workflow of a scientific article; (copy)rights and dues of an author, plagiarism, citations and bibliographies. • How to work with a reference manager software. • Improving research impact: from bibliometric analysis to research evaluation; journals evaluation (from authoritative to predatory); differences among ahead of print, post print, editorial version of a publication; • the Open Access initiative and what this means for the authors; what ASN and VQR are with examples and exercises; how the repository IRIS works; checking author profiles on Scopus, Publons and ORCID. This course is mandatory for all PhD students DATES: 20, 27 February, 2025 (first edition) 19, 26 March, 2025 (second edition) 29 April and 6 May, 2025 (third edition) Please read carefully the information in the leaflets available at the following links: – Bibliographic research PhD 2025 – Training offer to PhD Schools | |
| 23 | Using LLMs for Scientific English: Writing and Presenting (25 hrs, 6 ECTS) |
| LECTURER: Adrian Wallwork SYLLABUS: The lessons integrate the traditional elements of a course on writing and presenting in English with insights and strategies on the way Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, Poe, Gemini and Curie can be used as a support, but highlighting that they also have deficiencies. – Module 1: Large Language Models – Module 2: Manuscript writing skills – Module 3: Presentation skills DATES: ONLINE classes: march 24, 26, 31; april 2, 3, 2025 – h 8:30 – 10:30 LINK to be communicated IN PERSON classes: april 7, 2025 – h 12:00 – 14:00 and 14:45 – 17:45 (Room M1.4) april 8, 2025 – h 9:30 – 12:30 (Room M1.4) h 13:15 – 15:15 (Room M2.4) april 9, 2025 – h 8:30 – 11:30 and 12:15 – 14:15 (Room M1.3) All rooms are in the Math building of the FIM Department, via Giuseppe Campi 213/B, Modena. More information at this link |
