In 2003, I started the Ph.D programme in Applied Statistics at the Department of Statistics of the University of Florence. I got the Ph.D in 2006, with a thesis on learning probabilistic networks from data. In the thesis new techniques on learning Bayesian Networks from data were analyzed and developed.

The aim of the thesis was to apply Artificial Intelligence techniques to the analysis of microarray experiments. As part of a project funded by the department of the Internal Medicine of the University of Florence I worked intensively with breast cancer microarray data and I accumulated a consistent expertise in the field of genetics and micro array by developing a deep knowledge of the statistical issues related to these fields. In particular I practically worked with the normalization issues, the imputation of missing data and the analysis of Micro array data.

Moving in this framework, the aim of the thesis was to develop a set of algorithms to explore and analyze micro array data and to attempt to re-build and explore causal relations among genes using Bayesian Networks learning algorithms. Under the supervision of Prof. F.M. Stefanini, the work was focused on the development of Mixed Bayesian Networks methods, characterized by a large number of variables and admitting both discrete and continuous variables. The application of the new developed methods to Machine Learning and Micro array benchmark datasets was performed with successful results. In addition to this main topic, a new method to normalized Micro array data using spike controls was also developed and proposed. The thesis was composed by 4 scientific papers plus an appendix where the implementation of the new algorithms in the R environment was discussed. All the papers have been published in international peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings.

Moreover, during my Ph.D. programme I spent one semester at the prestigious Computer Science Department of the University of Aalborg working in the Machine Intelligence group with Prof. Finn V. Jensen and Prof. Thomas D. Nielsen and, meanwhile, I also accumulated a strong teaching and tutoring experience by giving courses and seminars in Statistics

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