INFORMATICA PER LA GESTIONE DEI DATI

Academic Year 2022/2023 - Teacher: CLAUDIA CAVALLARO

Expected Learning Outcomes

Goals of the "Computer science for data management" course: provide a set of IT and statistical tools for data analysis.

The aim of the course is to provide a brief introduction to the statistical methodologies, the probability, the Monte Carlo method and the Markov chains. For this purpose the electronic spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) will be used.


Knowledge and understanding: the aim of the course is to acquire knowledge that allows the student to analyze numerical data in order to make probabilistic forecasts.

Applying knowledge and understanding: the student will acquire the necessary skills to use commonly used statistical tools. In this regard, a part of the course will consist of lectures of laboratory, with practical examples.

Making judjements: through concrete examples, the student will be able to apply various statistical tests to better analyze the data.

Communication skills: the student will acquire the necessary communication skills and expressive appropriateness in the use of statistical language.

Learning skills: the course aims, as a goal, to provide the student with the necessary theoretical and practical methods to be able to face and solve new problems that may arise during a working activity. 

Course Structure

Classroom lessons. Classroom exercise on spreadsheet. Should teaching be carried out in mixed mode or remotely, it may be necessary to introduce changes with respect to previous statements, in line with the programme planned and outlined in the syllabus. 

Required Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of the use of personal computer.

Attendance of Lessons

Strongly recommend

Detailed Course Content

Descriptive statistics. Numerical representations of statistical data. Graphic representations of frequency distributions. Trends, variability and shape. Linear and nonlinear regression for a set of data. Exercises with electronic spreadsheet.

Probability elements. Some probability definitions. Axiomatic definition of probability. Conditional probability. Bayes theorem. Discrete and continuous random variables. Central trend indices and variability.

Main distributions. Distribution of Bernoulli, Binomial, Poisson, Exponential, Weibull, Normal, Chisquare, Student.

Convergence theorems. Distribution Convergence, Large Number law, Central Limit Theorem.

Parameter estimates. Sampling and samples. Major sampling distributions. Timely estimators and estimates. Interval estimates: average confidence intervals and variance. 

Examples Hypothesis Test. General characteristics of a hypothesis test. Parametric tests. Examples. Nonparametric tests. Test for the goodness of the adaptation. Kolmogorov-Smirnov's Test. Chi-square Test. Exercises with electronic spreadsheet.

Random numbers. Generators based on linear occurrences. Statistical tests for random numbers. Generating random numbers with assigned probability density: direct technique, rejection, combined.

The Monte Carlo method. Recall for Numerical Integration Methods. Monte Carlo Algorithm "Hit or Miss". Monte Carlo sampling algorithm. Monte-Carlo sample-mean algorithm.

Markov chains. Definitions and generalities. Calculation of joint laws. Classification of states. Invariant probabilities. Steady state. The Metropolis Algorithm. Basic about theory of queues.

Textbook Information

Professor's notes

Learning Assessment

Learning Assessment Procedures

The final exam consists of a written test with exercises or in a laboratory test with a spreadsheet in Excel.