dottoratoAppl-eng

Established 1992 within a cooperative agreement among the Universities of Catania, Naples Federico II, Second University of Naples, Palermo and Salerno. (Formerly denominated Research Doctorate in Applied Mathematics and Informatics)

Scientific-Teaching Program, Training Pathways and their Objectives

Surname	Name	Title	Discipline	Faculty	University
BONATTI	Piero	Professor	Computer Science	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
BURATTINI	Ernesto	Professor.	Computer Science	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
DE LUCA	Aldo	Professor.	Computer Science	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
MOSCARIELLO	Gioconda	Professor	Mathematical Analysis	ENGINEERING	NAPLES FEDERICO II
MAUGERI	Antonino	Professor	Mathematical Analysis	SCIENCE	CATANIA
MURLI	Almerico	Professor	Numerical Calculus and Programming	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
NOBILE	Amelia Giuseppina	Professor	Cybernetics	SCIENCE	SALERNO
ORECCHIA	Ferruccio	Professor	Geometry	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
RICCIARDI	Luigi Maria	Professor	Calcolo delle Probabilità	SCIENCE	NAPOLI FEDERICO II
RUSSO	Elvira	Professor	Numerical Calculus	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
TERMINI	Settimo	Professor	Cybernetics	SCIENCE	PALERMO
TOSCANO	Raffaele	Professor	Mathematical Analysis II	ENGINEERING	SECOND UNIVERSITY OF NAPLES
TRAUTTEUR	Giuseppe	Professor	Computer Science	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
TROMBETTI	Guido	Professor	Mathematical Analysis II	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II
VISENTIN	Francesca	Professor	Mathematical Physics	SCIENCE	NAPLES FEDERICO II

The Research Doctorate in Computation and Information Sciences (REDCIS) has been operating since the very first inception of Research Doctorates in Italy, in November 1982. It has always been regarded with great interest and high expectations by young graduates in the fields of Mathematics, Informatics, Physics and Engineering who came predominantly, but not exclusively, from the participating universities, namely the University of Catania, Naples Federico II University (Science and Engineering), Second University of Naples , University of Salerno and University of Palermo.

REDCIS aims at training researchers who have an in-depth and integrated knowledge of essential tools and a basic cognizance of a wide range of mathematical and informatics disciplines. At the same time they should possess the ability to formalize problems in different applicable contexts and construct and analyze suitable mathematical models which require the use of numerical and data processing sophisticated techniques. In addition, a solid knowledge is required in the areas of probability, mathematical statistics and related applications. Therefore, those wishing to obtain this Doctorate will need to absorb different fundamental methodologies of Applied Mathematics and Informatics as well as other methodologies pertaining to ancillary specialization areas. Their ensuing increasing involvement in advanced research will develop along diversified curricular directions (mathematical informatics, numerical analysis and optimization, applied analysis, mathematical physics). All graduate students are expected to develop

Furthermore, they will have to acquire, through analyses of meaningful sample problems, the tools and techniques necessary for solving realistic problems of different types in their entirety.

It should be highlighted that from the time of its inception, or rather since the first cycle of REDCIS, over 200 students and as many scholarships have been assigned to this Doctorate. It should be mentioned that all of the candidates accepted, with the exception of three who withdrew before the end of the three-year period, have reached, or are about to reach, the required standard of preparation and competence. In order to provide a hint on the variety and consistency of employment possibilities, it must be mentioned that all the research doctors have obtained rewarding jobs in universities, scientific institutions and in public and private enterprises, normally before the conclusion of their doctorate studies.

As experience over the 23-cycle period of this Doctorate has amply demonstrated, there are numerous and diversified productive and service sectors into which the recipients of this Doctorate can find employment. In fact, graduates of REDCIS are characterized as belonging to the managerial stratum, not only in the sphere of universities and public and private research bodies but also in sectors of public intervention with a potentially high demand for employment such as the management of environmental resources, planning and optimization of transport networks, informatics and telematic systems, management of resources and environmental control, processing of tele-tracking data, numerical applications in meteorology and diffusion of pollutants and design and development of technical informatics services.

The interest of public research bodies in programs of this nature has been often demonstrated many times both by scientific organs of the National Research Council and by the management of the Council itself, even to the extent of granting special admission scholarships. The European Union has also shown interest by making concrete contributions in the form of financial resources and the allocation of study grants.

REDCIS is offered to those graduates who owing a Master Degree in Mathematics, Physics, Informatics, etc., or an equivalent qualification obtained at a foreign university, possess a sufficient basic preparation in mathematical disciplines. This requirement is assessed by the entrance examination Committee.

The doctorate course lasts 3 years and includes several training pathways which have been specifically tailored to the participants and which are firmly centered in the fields of Applied Mathematics, Computation and Informatics. A period of basic overall training is followed, and partly complemented by, a period of progressive development which guides the participants towards autonomous skills of actuation and concludes with a thesis proposal in one of the areas of the training program. This last aspect underlines the particular spirit of this Doctorate, which is far removed from traditional scholastic conceptions. The function of the REDCIS is fundamentally training in scientific research. The participant will have to demonstrate that by the end of the training program he/she is able to carry out autonomously and efficiently high level research projects.

During the first year, the participants follow courses and seminars directed toward research and take related examinations. Basic courses concern training in applications of algebra (particularly computational algebra), partial differential equations, differential and integral equations, mathematical software, mathematical informatics, Information theory, methods of numerical analysis, methods and techniques of electronic data processing, mathematical methods for applications, simulation, stability for discrete and continuous systems, computational and mathematical statistics, stochastic processes (especially directed to applications in biology, physics, economics, engineering), optimization theory and methods. The aim of basic courses and seminars is to provide the participants, in a systematic and organic way, with the basic tools of research in each individual discipline, so as to ensure the completion of their institutional preparation. The Teaching Board, on the basis of each participant?s initial background, determins which courses each participant will have to follow and therefore specifies the detailed features that the courses have to possess. It is worth mentioning that these courses have atypical aspects as befits post-graduate level courses. The different teaching approaches used, jointly with the characteristics of the participants themselves which cannot be disregarded, lead to offering courses of a standard type, reading courses, project courses, seminar courses.

In order to be able to continue following the doctorate program, the participants, at the end of the first year or on another date established by the Teaching Board, must take and pass a qualifying exam. This will be administered by a single committee nominated by the Teaching Board. The qualifying exam is to ensure that the student?s cultural preparation and scientific training is sufficiently well-developed. Assessment will take into account the credits and debts which the student has accrued during the courses.

During the second year, complementing the completion of their training through courses and seminars, the participants usually is expected to begin personalized work which is designed to lead them towards a proposal for a research topic which, usually at the end of the second year, is discussed and defended by the participants with the Teaching Board as well as with experts who may be designated by the Teaching Board. Following a successful conclusion, the Teaching Board formally approves the dissertation topic and nominates the Research Director.

This procedure for approving a dissertation topic has stemmed from the need to avoid the risk of definitively assigning a specialized research topic to a participant whose maturity and abilities as regards to synthesis and degree of autonomy may still be below the required level. The number, length and programming of the courses in the training areas are discussed and decided by the Teaching Board, which also deals with the necessary co-ordination of the courses.

Individual study and research activities in the third year are accompanied by cycles of specialized seminars which are decided by the Research Directors and by the Teaching Board. These cycles represent an essential tool for giving the participants more in-depth knowledge and greater orientation towards scientific research. This latter, it is worth emphasizing, within the sphere of this Doctorate course has predominance with respect to the teaching phases of the course.

Teaching activities, consonant with this kind of atypical form of course, of a broadly seminar-type nature, have been built into the program with the collaboration of foreign professors and other national and foreign scientific institutes. Strictly scientific-cultural considerations, dictated by the nature and the duration of the doctorate course, make it advisable, as has already been mentioned, to begin an initial phase which is specifically oriented toward basic training, itself a two-year activity, of the participants during the second year of the course. During the same period the participants themselves also begin elaborating their scientific research programs. The necessity of allowing the participants to move to different university and research institutes which are involved or not, as the case may be, in the doctorate program is equally advisable during this same initial phase of the course, on the recommendation of the Chairman or the Teaching Board. In order to avoid a useless waste of resources, participants may be assigned to attend courses and seminar cycles in institutes associated with the doctorate program. These course and seminar cycles will not only concern research topics of interest to the groups operating within the sphere of the Doctorate but also other issues of advanced research for which the specific competence of professors and visiting professors, present in the various institutes, will be made available.

Finally, it must be underlined that students of this Doctorate are strongly encouraged to spend a period of the three-year course in qualified scientific institutions both in Italy and abroad.

Organization and management of the doctorate course is taken care by the Chairman, jointly with the Teaching Board, who will operate flexibly according to the dictates of experience and current circumstances.

Luigi M. Ricciardi

Scientific-Teaching Program, Training Pathways and their Objectives