AI for the sciences [PhD funding]

Our mega-university, PSL, is calling PhD candidates to apply for one of the 15 PhD scholarships supported to work on one of the 24 PhD topics proposed in the call. Deadline is 22 February 2021, the only constraint for applicants being that they must have stayed or studied less than 12 months in France, since 27 Feb 2018 … Here are some of the 24 topics:

• # 5 : Dark energy studies with the Vera Rubin Observatory LSST & Euclid – Developing a combined cosmic shear analysis with Bayesian neural networks (Observatoire de Paris – PSL)
• # 2 : AI-supported optimisation of multi-actor energy systems enhanced with privacy & confidentiality preserving data sharing (Mines Paris – PSL)
• # 20 : Unsupervized learning of causal graphical models from time-resolved cell biology data (Institut Curie)
• # 22 : A computational and artificial Intelligence approach for studying dolphin communication (Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL)
• # 23 : Machine learning for biodiversity monitoring (EPHE – PSL)

trip to München

While my train ride to the fabulous De Gaulle airport was so much delayed that I had less than ten minutes from jumping from the carriage to sitting in my plane seat, I handled the run through security and the endless corridors of the airport in the allotted time, and reached Munich in time for my afternoon seminar and several discussions that prolonged into a pleasant dinner of Wiener Schnitzel and Eisbier.  This was very exciting as I met physicists and astrophysicists involved in population Monte Carlo and parallel MCMC and manageable harmonic mean estimates and intractable ABC settings (because simulating the data takes eons!). I wish the afternoon could have been longer. And while this is the third time I come to Munich, I still have not managed to see the centre of town! Or even the nearby mountains. Maybe an unsuspected consequence of the Heisenberg principle…

Le Monde puzzle [#869]

An uninteresting Le Monde mathematical puzzle:

Solve the system of equations

• a+b+c=16,
• b+c+d=12,
• d+c+e=16,
• e+c+f=18,
• g+c+a=15

for 7 different integers 1≤a,…,g≤9.

Indeed, the final four equations determine d=a-4, e=b+4, f=a-2, g=b-1 as functions of a and b. While forcing 5≤a, 2≤b≤5, and  7≤a+b≤15. Hence, 5 possible values for a and 4 for b. Which makes 20 possible solutions for the system. However the fact that a,b,c,d,e,f,g are all different reduces considerably the possibilities. For instance, b must be less than a-4. The elimination of impossible cases leads in the end to consider b=a-5 and b=a-7. And eventually to a=8, b=3… Not so uninteresting then. A variant of Sudoku, with open questions like what is the collection of the possible values of the five sums, i.e. of the values with one and only one existing solution? Are there cases where four equations only suffice to determine a,b,c,d,e,f,g?

Apart from this integer programming exercise, a few items of relevance in this Le Monde Science & Medicine leaflet.  A description of the day of a social sciences worker in front of a computer, in connection with a sociology (or sociometry) blog and a conference on Big Data in sociology at Collège de France. A tribune by the physicist Marco on data sharing (and not-sharing) illustrated by an experiment on dark matter called Cogent. And then a long interview of Matthieu Ricard, who argues about the “scientifically proven impact of meditation”, a sad illustration of the ease with which religions permeate the scientific debate [or at least the science section of Le Monde] and mingle scientific terms with religious concepts (e.g., the fusion term of “contemplative sciences”). [As another “of those coincidences”, on the same day I read this leaflet, Matthieu Ricard was the topic of one question on a radio quizz.]