55544 - Differential Calculus

Academic Year 2013/2014

  • Docente: Andrea Brini
  • Credits: 5
  • SSD: SECS-S/06
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in STATISTICS, ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS (cod. 8056)

Learning outcomes


The student will learn the basic concepts and techiques of multivariate differential calculus. More specificfally, the student will be able to calculate partial derivatives, 
to find maxima and minima a nd to use the Lagrange multiplicator method.

Course contents

Introduction to metric topology. Complete sapces. Connected spaces.

Spaces of limited functions. pointwise and uniform convergence for sequences of limited functions.
Normed and Banach spaces. Compact spaces.

Total convergence for series in Banach spaces. Spaces with inner product.

Partial derivatives and differentiable functions. The total differential theorem.

Multivariate Taylor expansion. Hessian matrices, local extrema.Implicit functions: Dini's theorem.Simple, open and regular curves in R^n and tangent vectors. Differentiable manifolds in R^n.
Jacobian matrices. Tangent spaces and normal spaces.  The method of Lagrange multipliers for optimality in constrained problems.

Teaching methods

We will  introduce  general concept and methods pertaining to the Differentil Calculus for functions in several variables.
We also analyze some concrete problems, in order to stimulate the student to find solutions in an autonomous way.

Assessment methods

The examination consists of an oral examination lasting 45 minutes. Will occur 'the student's Competency both in terms of acquisition of concepts and methods, with application to concrete cases.

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Brini