Secondary Major in Computational Infrastructures & Services or Digital Services: Optional Courses

Student Placement

Students can choose it only once during undergraduate studies (either the 7th or the 8th semester).

Privacy on the Internet

Learning Outcomes

Within the framework of the course, students will be able:

To fully understand the concepts of privacy, territorial privacy, privacy of the person and especially informational privacy
To realise the privacy threats environment and related requirements
To understand the concept of privacy framework
To realise the legal requirements of privacy by design and privacy by default
To conduct data protection impact assessment surveys for public and private bodies
To study all privacy issues rised in modern public clouds
To know critical technological tools for privacy enhancement
To understand national and European regulations regarding informational privacy protection and personal data protection
To understand the challenges posed by the evolving dynamics of the combination of the cognitive fields of cyber security, privacy protection, and Artificial Intelligence and the way they create social, cultural, political, and financial issues, as well as ethical issues in modern societies
To possess state-of-the-art specialized scientific knowledge in the subjects of the course as a basis for original thinking and research activities.

Course Contents

Privacy: The citizens and public & private bodies viewpoint. Territorial privacy, privacy of the person, informational privacy
Personally identifiable information PII and personal data
Threats and privacy requirements
The privacy paradox
Legal and regulatory frameworks for personal data protection: The EU GDPR General Data Protection Regulation
Privacy framework and ISO 29100:2024
Controls and best practices for privacy protection according to ISO 29151:2017
Privacy by design and ISO 31700-1: 2023
Privacy information management system and ISO 27701:2019
Data protection impact assessment and ISO 29134:2023
Privacy in public clouds and ISO 27018:2019
Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Data obfuscation tools (anonymization, pseudonymization, synthetic data, differential privacy, zero knowledge proofs), Encrypted data processing tools (homomorphic encryption, multiparty computation, trusted execution environments), Federated and distributed analytics (federated learning, distributed analytics), Data accountability tools (accountable systems, threshold secret sharing, personal information management systems)
Privacy protection and AI systems: The Artificial Intelligence Act

Suggested Bibliography

Acquisti, S. Gritzalis, C. Lambrinoudakis, S. De Capitani di Vimercati (Eds) (2008), Digital Privacy, Theory, Technology and Practices, Auerbach Publications
Tamo-Larrieux (2018), Designing for Privacy and its Legal Framework: Data Protection by Design and Default for the Internet of Things, Springer
Bart van der Sloot, A. de Groot, (2018) The Handbook of Privacy Studies, Amsterdam University Press

Scientific Journals

ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security https://dl.acm.org/journal/tops
Security and Privacy, J. Wiley and Sons https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/24756725
International Journal of Information Security, Springer https://link.springer.com/journal/10207

Compulsory Course of the Secondary Major that has not been chosen as compulsory course of Secondary Major

The course is introducing students in telemedicine systems and applications that improve the quality of life and provide remote electronic health services. The curriculum includes background knowledge in the areas of coding and processing of biomedical data, analyzes the design and implementation issues of telemedicine systems and discusses the next generation telemedicine systems, which include context awareness and computational intelligence as additional features. During the course case studies will be presented and there will be project assigned to students.

Students, upon successful completion of the course, will be able to:

A) Understand basic methodologies of design and development of telemedicine systems

B) Be familiar with the main techniques for the coding and processing of biomedical signals and data

C) Know the coding standards for medical information

D) Design telemedicine systems according to special requirements and the type of medical information exchanged

E) Evaluate telemedicine systems

Course Contents

Introduction to Telemedicine
Biomedical Data Coding and Compression
Biomedical Data Processing for Telemedicine Applications
Video Communication for Telemedicine Applications
Telemedicine Networks
Home Care Systems
Context Aware Telemedicine Systems
Wireless Telemedicine and Ambient Assisted Living
Wearable Systems
Clinical Applications of Telemedicine
Security in Telemedicine systems
Case Studies – Project Assignments

Data Processing Techniques

Learning Outcomes

The objective of this course is to familiarize students with: (a) learning access methods for large data volumes for various data formats, as well as scalable writing, (b) efficient data storage and retrieval with appropriate indexing techniques, (c) the design and implementation of data processing algorithms aiming at the development of efficient applications that manage data.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be in position:

to develop data-centric applications with emphasis in efficiency and scalability
to use the most appropriate indexing methods for a given problem
to evaluate and improve the parts of data processing algorithms that incur high computational load
to apply the most suitable data processing techniques that match with data under analysis and for a given query workload
to develop efficient data processing algorithms

Course Contents

Operation of disk and main memory, serial and random access, cost and efficiency, data locality on disk and main-memory, direct and indirect access, main-memory data structures (arrays, priority queues, hashing)
Data access techniques for structured, semi-structured and unstructured data: relational DBs, XML, RDF, text documents, web pages, web APIs, social networks.
One-dimensional data and indexing, B-tree, variations (B+tree, B*tree), range queries, inverted indexes.
Spatial data, spatial data types, spatial queries, approximation in representation, distance measures, extensions for multidimensional data.
Spatial indexing techniques, grid file, spatial indexes (R-tree, QuadTree), space-filling curves (Hilbert, Z-order)
Similarity search, k-nearest neighbor search, branch-and-bound algorithms, locality sensitive hashing (LSH), approximate k-nearest neighbor.
Top-k search: algorithms based on pre-processing, online algorithms, Fagin’s algorithm, index-based algorithms.
Join queries, spatial joins, top-k joins.
Spatio-textual data, query types, indexing methods, processing algorithms.

Design and Optimization of Networks

Learning Outcomes

The course presents principles and methodologies on the design, evaluation and optimization of networks and services, complementing the basic knowledge of architecture, protocols and functions of communication networks.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be in position to:

follow and utilize the approach of top-down network design, that is most commonly encountered on medium to large scale networking projects
understand and evaluate alternative design options at every stage of data networks design, (e.g. requirement and specification definition, logical and physical design, selection of appropriate technologies and protocols, addressing and naming of network devices, implementation, testing and optimization)
select and propose proper architectures, network technologies, protocols and politics, depending on the design, upgrade and/or optimization of the network at hand
implement, control and readjust solutions on new or redesign existing network projects
run and operate routing protocols simulation software and packet sniffing software

Course Contents

Introduction to the design and performance evaluation of networks and services.
Modelling and topological design of communication networks.
Modelling of network services traffic and work load.
Top-down network design under service requirements and various constraints.
Selection of most appropriate link, network and transport layer protocols.
Selection of most appropriate network architecture and network devices.
Network optimization techniques and algorithms, network reliability.
Performance measures.
Quality of service assurance.
Theoretical exercises and network design projects.

Mobile Communication Systems

Learning Outcomes

The course provides the basic principles of cellular mobile communication systems. It also provides the methodologies of analysis and design of these systems. By concluding the course, students are able to

analyze and design basic mobile communication systems by emphasizing in physical layer techniques
recognize, describe and distinguish the characteristics of several type of cells, communication channels and multiple access techniques
analyze and design systems with different requirements of telecommunication traffic and quality links
compute the thresholds of link performance,
compare alternative implementation plans and evaluate the total performance of digital systems

The lab sessions aim to provide a deeper understanding of physical phenomena of propagation in the wireless channel and the simulation of cellular systems.

Course Contents

Initially, basic concepts of Mobile Communications Radiosystems are provided (cell types, communication channel types, basic cellular system operations). Basic Network Access Techniques (Multiple Access Techniques, Random Access Techniques) are discussed. Also, reference is made to the evolution of Wireless Communication Systems (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th generation cellular systems, Wireless Telephony Systems, Paging Systems, WLANs, WPANs, PMRs). Students are introduced to the concept of cells and frequency reuse (elements from regular hexagon geometry, cellular systems design). Then the basic concepts of telecommunication traffic analysis and systems performance is provided (elements of Queuing Theory, Erlang B model, Erlang C model, spectral performance of cellular systems). In the following the main wireless propagation mechanisms are presented (multipath propagation, Doppler fading and shift, propagation loss, shadowing, coverage area definition, radio channel capacity limits). Interference types (co-channel interference and noise, neighboring channel interference) as well as handover and performance techniques (categorization of handover techniques, advantages and disadvantages of techniques, stable performance, dynamic performance, elastic performance) are discussed and compared. Techniques for improving spectral efficiency (sectoring, cell splitting) are then analyzed. Finally, elements and techniques of physical layer design (modulation and coding techniques, co-channel interference mitigation techniques) are presented and a presentation of standardized Mobile Communications Systems (GSM, GPRS, 3G and 4G) is presented.

In addition, extra content (in evdoxos.ds.unipi.gr) like articles, audiovisual lectures and Internet addresses, as well as exercises for student’s practice are posted electronically. Case studies, exemplary problems and methods for solving them are presented.

e-Learning Systems

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course the students will be able:

to know and understand the key concepts of digital teaching and learning
to analyse, assess, select and justify pedagogically appropriate e-learning methods and tools for digital teaching and learning innovations.
to design and create pedagogically grounded online courses.

Course Contents

Online Teaching and Learning: Theoretical Underpinnings
Educational Design for Online Teaching and Learning
An hierarchical Open Access to Online Education framework: Elements (Open Educational Resources, Learning Activities and Lesson Plans, Online Courses, Digital Learning Spaces). Tools and Key Roles (Online Education Instructional Designers, e-Tutors, e-Learning Systems Administrators, Managers)
Open Educational Resources: Learning Objects, Educational Metadata, Repositories of Learning Objects. Case Studies: the National Repositories of Learning Objects
Learning Activities and Lesson Plans: Authoring Tools for Learning Activities and Lesson Plans, Repositories of Learning Activities and Lesson Plans. Case Studies: the National Repositories of Learning Activities and Lesson Plans
Design, Development and Delivery of Online Courses: Methodology for Designing Online Courses. Authoring Tools for Developing Online Courses. Course Management Systems. Case Study: Open edX, MOODLE
Digital Learning Spaces: 3D Virtual Classrooms and Laboratories

IT-Centric Professional Development

Learning Outcomes

This course introduces students in consulting procedures for the personal and professional development in an IT context. It addresses the needs of students as future workers on ‘how to be involved in a IT workforce community’ by enhancing them to provide emerging professional development opportunities and practices.

On completion of the course, the students will be able to:

- understand the theoretical background of the consulting (in physical and IT context).
- select and design the appropriate components for their academic and career path (KPIs).
- critically evaluate a set of skills for professional development.
- design and build products/services via appropriate components to an institutional IT context and demands (needs, motivations, attitudes, ethics).
- compose a personal/professional career plan for further development in the society (KPIs).

Course Contents

Basic consulting theories and practices necessary for the development of effective performance on an academic and professional environment in IT business community (Kirkpatrick model, SRL, SDL).
Continuing Professional Development programs (CPD).
Skills and Competencies.
Communication and Collaboration (active listening, verbal, non-verbal, communication).
Μentoring and coaching.
Personal and affective factors in performing (needs, attitudes, motivation, self-esteem etc.
Organizational factors (ethics, leadership).
Problem solving, innovation, creativity.
Evaluation (KPIs).

Advanced Topics in Wireless Communications

Learning Outcomes

This course focuses on wide area wireless networks and addresses advanced topics in physical layer design, multi-carrier systems and wireless standards evolution.

At the end of this course, students will have acquired advanced/in depth knowledge in the field of Wireless Communications, with particular emphasis on wireless channel modelling, Multiple Input Multiple Output systems design, and performance evaluation in terms of capacity.

The students will be capable of performing numerical calculations of various wireless parameters, stochastic modelling of wireless transceivers and performance assessment by means of analytical evaluations and simulations, with main focus on baseband processing and radio resources management.

Course Contents

Advanced physical layer design topics: modulation and coding
Multiplexing in time, space, frequency, code
Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems
Multi-carrier systems: OFDM/OFDMA.
Radio resource allocation: multi-user communications and scheduling, cross-layer optimization.
Wireless standards: 3G evolution, IEEE 802.x, 4G and 5G

Κατεύθυνση: Secondary Major in Computational Infrastructures & Services or Digital Services: Optional Courses

Student Placement

Privacy on the Internet

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Suggested Bibliography

Scientific Journals

Compulsory Course of the Secondary Major that has not been chosen as compulsory course of Secondary Major

Telemedicine

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

Data Processing Techniques

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

Design and Optimization of Networks

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

Mobile Communication Systems

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

Associated scientific Journals

e-Learning Systems

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

IT-Centric Professional Development

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

Advanced Topics in Wireless Communications

Learning Outcomes

Course Contents

Recommended Readings

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