Aim of the School

In Physics the study of physical phenomena requires the detection and the processing of a physical signal. This process is based on i) the deep knowledge of the mechanism of the interaction of the sensing device with some physical entity, ii) the design of the acquisition system and the data handling strategy, iii) the pre-processing and processing of the data into a final scientific measurement. With a focus on the big data complexity and the computational aspects, the School aims at discussing this pipeline across various Physics subdomains.

Dates 

The school was held from July 20^th to July 24^th 2020. Due to the COVID health emergency, the school was 100% online and open to everyone. It wasentirely steered through videconferencing systems by a team of professor and researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy (DIFA) of Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, Italy.

Content

This event in the series of DIFA International Schools is aimed to provide a general and broad overview of the various aspects that are involved in the overall pipeline that starts from the collection of complex and big data, and goes thorough data handling/cleaning/curation, data processing, data storage, and data analysis towards the extraction of scientific results and their ultimate communication to the public: all aspects in the School are instantiated in a variety of different physics subdomains. The physics areas covered in the School include e.g. High-Energy Physics, Medical Physics, Solid State Physics, Astronomy.

The School is addressed at Master, PhD students, early-career scientists, but it is also suggested to undergraduate students. Due to the 100% online format, anyway, it is open to anyone interested, with no fees applied.

Format

The School hosts international speakers and the official language is English. The program is articulated in front lectures in the form of seminars (1 hour each) - with additional time for questions and discussions - and hands-on/tutorial sessions. On the former, we will host speakers from University of Bologna, from INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), Caltech/CERN, Cornell University, IBM and Nvidia. On the latter, the attendants will have a chance to challenge themselves with a Data Science hands-on session with experts from Cornell University, and a Quantum Computing hands-on session with experts from IBM. Cooperative activities are planned to support the creative thinking on the content of the school and the development of transversal, soft and social skills. All attendants who will actively participate to the collaborative activities of the school will be granted a certificate attendance to the School.